EVANGELICALS. — Among Protestant authors, the earliest churches, such as the Lutheran, Calvinist, Anglican, etc., are collectively designated by the term “Evangelical Churches” in contrast to the “Catholic Church.” It is in this sense that modern Protestants have sought to revive the name. Indeed, some delegates of the Pan-American Protestant Congress or Conference in Panama (1926), upon concluding the Congress, visited various nations in Latin America. Having noted the unfavorable impression that the diverse names of so many churches made upon Latin American Catholics, they recommended adopting the name “Evangelical Church” as a common designation for all Protestant denominations within a single nation, so that members would no longer call themselves Baptists or Methodists but simply Evangelicals. In Italy, in the most recent censuses, members of various denominations renounced, for census purposes, their names as Waldensians, Baptists, etc., in favor of the common designation of Evangelicals, as if all were members of a single Evangelical Church that did not exist. However, the name “Evangelical” is especially given to the members of the Evangelical Church of Prussia.
Prussia embraced Lutheranism in 1525 when the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, Albert, apostatized and proclaimed himself Duke of Prussia. The Elector of Brandenburg, John Sigismund (1606–19), who had united the Electorate of Brandenburg with the Duchy of Prussia and was a Calvinist (v. CONFESSIONS OF FAITH, PROTESTANT: Lutheran-Calvinist), vainly attempted to make the Prussians Calvinists. The first King of Prussia, Frederick I (1700–13), likewise sought to do so, but in vain. Frederick II (1740–86), friend of Voltaire, granted property to all his subjects who were free to practice their faith, but reduced the various churches of his states to mere religious societies under his control. This dominion of German Protestant princes over the churches in their territories was not new. Indeed, Luther had already conceded it, at least over Lutherans, when he wrote to the Elector of Saxony that “in the name of Christian charity and for the love of God he should take into his hands the care of the Church, etc.” As for the Calvinists or Reformed in Prussia, they were bound to the House of Hohenzollern because the Elector and Duke John Sigismund had been a Calvinist, and because the Great Elector Frederick William (1640–88) had welcomed into his states the Calvinists expelled from France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Relying on this authority over the two principal confessions in his states, King Frederick William III (1797–1840) established the United Evangelical Church. After the wars against Napoleon, in 1817, on the occasion of the third centenary of the Reformation, he wished to unite into a single church the Lutherans and Reformed within his states. He proposed that, setting aside doctrinal differences and retaining their respective confessional writings, all should unite in a spirit of brotherly love to receive the Lord’s Supper together. The idea was received fairly well, more by the Reformed than by the Lutherans, and was approved by many provincial synods, which petitioned the king to convene a general synod to study the constitution of the new Church—a proposal that did not please the king or his ministers. He therefore sought to introduce a new liturgy, but faced opposition from Protestants who were sensitive to anything resembling Catholic ritual, even going so far as to insist that superintendents be appointed, one of whom would exercise a certain oversight over all synods and consistories. What mattered most to the king, however, was the new liturgy he himself had composed, drawn from early Lutheran and Anglican liturgies, still very similar to the Catholic liturgy, and in which he prescribed even the minutest rubrics. In 1822, he imposed this liturgy on all the churches under his jurisdiction. Opposition was strong once more, but the king persisted in his plan. Among the most prominent opponents were Schleiermacher, professor at the University of Berlin, and Schiebel, a Lutheran pastor in Breslau, Silesia. Some of the dissenters emigrated to North America and gave rise to the Synod of Missouri or Ohio and the Lutheran Synod of Buffalo.
The successors of Frederick William III granted greater religious freedom, but even after the Constitution of 1857, which granted the Evangelical Church an independent regime from the state with a clear distinction between state and prince, the Evangelical Church remained as before subject to the king, who governed it through a special council called the *Evangelischer Oberkirchenrat*, directly responsible to him, while allowing for provincial synods and, in 1869, a general one. This subjection of the Church to the King of Prussia lasted until the Weimar Constitution of 1917, which separated the new Reich from all churches. In the Stuttgart Assembly of 1921, many of these churches organized the Confederation of German Evangelical Churches, and of the 29 churches that formed it, the first and largest, with approximately 20,000,000 faithful, was the Evangelical Church of the Old Prussian Union.
The Confederation was called the *Deutsche Evangelische Kirche* (D.E.K.), and it established three departments to replace the various preexisting authorities: the *Kirchenrat*, a legislative body of laity and clergy; the *Kirchenbundesrat*, an advisory body; and the *Kirchenausschuss*, an executive body, in which the Evangelicals still predominated numerically. This was the structure Hitler found when he came to power (1933–34). At first, he did not appear hostile to the Church, but with the formation of the “German Christians” and his policies, he soon revealed himself to be a great enemy of both Catholics and Protestants. The Evangelical Church suffered especially when Dr. Jaeger, one of the principal leaders of the “German Christians,” was imposed by Hitler as head of the Evangelical Church of Prussia. The many vicissitudes of the Evangelicals during the Hitler regime mirrored those of all other German Protestants, and while not a few joined the German Christians, many, precisely because of the ruthless persecution by Nazism, strengthened their religious principles and practices of piety, with Pastor Martin Niemöller standing out among them.
After the German collapse of 1945, the D.E.K. changed its name to *Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland* (E.K.I.D.), and the Evangelical Church of Prussia followed its fortunes. In 1940, within the E.K.I.D., 10% were Reformed, 70% Lutherans, and 20% Evangelicals. At present, it seems that all the hopes of the Evangelicals and of all German Protestants rest on ecumenism; indeed, all are working together in the *Hilfswerk* aid organization, in which, effectively supported by foreign Protestants, they strive to remedy the calamities caused by the war.