Marvin, Thank you again for providing us with a cornucopia of church related information! I'm so glad you've responded to our plea for clarification. Talk about people being confused. I had mentioned one time on this forum that when I grew up in Germany there were only two major religious confessions in Germany, Catholic and Protestant, with the Evangelical-Lutherans being counted among the Protestants. Some lady responded that her ancestors were Lutherans and that they would turn over in their grave if someone had called them Protestants.:) This thread started with the "Altlutheraner" and before closing the subject I have one more question. Am I to assume that the present day "Lutheran" churches sprang from the "Altlutheraner"? I'm asking because pastor Gerhard Doroh of St. Peter's Lutheran Church in Richmond, MI asked me once if I knew about the German Lutherans [I assume he referred to the Altlutheraner] who at one time had been persecuted, even killed, and driven out of the country. At the time I had not heard about the Altlutheran in Germany or in the US and I thought he was talking about medievil times. I then began looking into the history of the Altlutheraner when I found out that this occured between 1835 and 1854, actually not that long ago. Happy New Year to all, Ursula <<all previous posts have been removed>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Marvin Huggins" <[email protected]> To: "Ursula" <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, January 1, 2010 12:12:58 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: Re: [G-P-L] Lutheran Connectons Ursula, The "Evangelical Calendar" about which you ask reflects another aspect of the confusion many have with identifying and locating the right congregation with records of their ancestors. The "Deutsche Evangelische  Synode von Nordamerika" developed out of the "Kirchenverein des Westens," which was organized about the same time as the Missouri Synod and the other midwestern Lutheran church bodies like the  Wisconsin and Iowa  synods. And it also happened to be centered in Saint Louis, which compounds the confusion. The Evangelical Synod (for short) is an American reflection of the Prussian Union churches from Germany with a mixture of Lutheran and Reformed confessional allegiances. It was at odds with the Missouri Synod, which stood on a strict adherence to the Lutheran Confessions in the Book of Concord of 1580.

It is sometimes difficult for people in the United States, who have grown up with such a wide variety of Christian denominations to understand the German situation. The term "Protestant" or "Evangelish" in German encompasses anyone not a Roman Catholic. But the Protestant family in Germany did include two diverse confessional strains--the Lutheran and the Reformed, the latter following the theology of John Calvin and his circle. Religious confession and political allegiance were mixed together under a principle that the faith of the ruler of a territory determined the official confessional faith of a territory. And the Reformed were very much a minority, so few territories officially followed that tradition. For the most part an area was either Lutheran or Roman Catholic. There were also groups then called Anabaptists--today represented by such traditions a Mennonites and Amish--who were found in German territories but never had a ruler give them legitimacy and often suffered various levels of persecution. Individual churches in the Lutheran or Protestant areas might follow either the Lutheran or the Reformed confessions and such differences were more or less tolerated. However, in 1817 Frederick William III, king of Prussia, himself a follower of the Reformed confession while his wife was a Lutheran, sought to force the churches in Prussia, the largest of the German territories, to follow one combined formula in worship with wording, for example, in the liturgy for the distribution of Holy Communion that was ambiguous so that both Lutherans and Reformed could interpret it according to their differing understandings. Some Lutherans resisted this. That's the origin of the term "altlutherisch" or "Altlutheraner." In some areas these pastors were removed from their parishes and even put into prison for resisting the king's decrees. As a result, there were several movements of pastors and members of their congregations to the U.S. and to Australia. The largest groups settled in western New York and in Wisconsin. Primarily the Wisconsin and the former Buffalo Synod were formed from these groups, but also the Missouri Synod held strongly to this Lutheran confessional position and readily received "old Lutherans" from Prussia into its congregations. Present-day Lutheran churches in the U.S. come from a much broader series of traditions that have gradually merged with the followers of the "Old Lutheran" tradition. They include the descendants of the large Lutheran population that came to America in the colonial period and settled along the east coast, especially heavily in the Carolinas, Pennsylvania, Maryland and New York and gradually spreading west in the 19th century. Another large component of the present Lutheran tradition consists of churches of Scandinavian heritage, and they came from a broad spectrum of attitudes and levels of commitment to the Lutheran confessional tradition. It's a very complex story! And the response of the lady you mentioned is certainly how many today perceive the religious tradition of their families. There might even be some whose ancestors were members of one of those Evangelical Synod congregations we discussed earlier who would make that claim about their family. Marvin Ursula wrote: > Marvin, > > Thank you again for providing us with a cornucopia of church related information! > I'm so glad you've responded to our plea for clarification. > > Talk about people being confused. > I had mentioned one time on this forum that when I grew up in Germany there were only two major religious confessions in Germany, Catholic and Protestant, with the Evangelical-Lutherans being counted among the Protestants. > Some lady responded that her ancestors were Lutherans and that they would turn over in their grave if someone had called them Protestants.:) > > This thread started with the "Altlutheraner" and before closing the subject I have one more question. > Am I to assume that the present day "Lutheran" churches sprang from the "Altlutheraner"? > I'm asking because pastor Gerhard Doroh of St. Peter's Lutheran Church in Richmond, MI asked me once if I knew about the German Lutherans [I assume he referred to the Altlutheraner] who at one time had been persecuted, even killed, and driven out of the country. At the time I had not heard about the Altlutheran in Germany or in the US and I thought he was talking about medievil times. I then began looking into the history of the Altlutheraner when I found out that this occured between 1835 and 1854, actually not that long ago. > > Happy New Year to all, > > Ursula > > <<all previous posts have been removed>> > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Marvin Huggins" <[email protected]> > To: "Ursula" <[email protected]> > Sent: Friday, January 1, 2010 12:12:58 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern > Subject: Re: [G-P-L] Lutheran Connectons > > Ursula, > > The "Evangelical Calendar" about which you ask reflects another aspect of the confusion many have with identifying and locating the right congregation with records of their ancestors. > > The "Deutsche Evangelische Synode von Nordamerika" developed out of the "Kirchenverein des Westens," which was organized about the same time as the Missouri Synod and the other midwestern Lutheran church bodies like the Wisconsin and Iowa synods. And it also happened to be centered in Saint Louis, which compounds the confusion. The Evangelical Synod (for short) is an American reflection of the Prussian Union churches from Germany with a mixture of Lutheran and Reformed confessional allegiances. It was at odds with the Missouri Synod, which stood on a strict adherence to the Lutheran Confessions in the Book of Concord of 1580. > > > For all the latest News, please visit our Homepage: http://www.germanyroots.com > > Please visit and participate in our new forum > http://www.germanyroots.com/phpBB3/ > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message