Evangelicals

EVANGELICALS. - Among Protestant authors, the early sects, such as the Lutheran, Calvinist, Anglican, etc., are designated by the collective name of "Evangelical Churches" to contrast them with the "Catholic Church." It is in this sense that modern Protestants have sought to revive the name "Evangelical." In fact, some delegates of the Pan-American Protestant Congress or Conference of Panama (1916), after the Congress ended, toured various nations of Latin America. And having noticed the sad impression that the different names of so many sects made among Latin American Catholics, in order to erase it they advised adopting the name "Evangelical Church," as a name common to all the Protestant sects of the same nation, and that members should no longer call themselves Baptists or Methodists, but simply Evangelicals. In Italy, in the most recent censuses, the members of the various sects renounced, for census purposes, their name of Waldensians, Baptists, etc., in order to adhere to the common designation of Evangelicals, as if they were all members of a single Evangelical Church that did not exist. But the name of Evangelicals is given in a special way to the members of the Evangelical Church of Prussia.

Prussia embraced Lutheranism in 1323 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 who was a Calvinist (v. CONFESSIONS OF PROTESTANT FAITH: Lutheran-Calvinist), tried in vain to make the Prussians Calvinists. The first King of Prussia, Frederick I (1700-13), wished to do the same, but in vain. Voltaire's friend, Frederick II (1740-86), indeed granted all his subjects broad freedom of worship, but reduced the various sects of his states to simple religious societies under his control. This dominion of the German Protestant princes over the sects of their territory was nothing new. In fact, Luther had already granted it, at least over the 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 of Prussia, they were obliged to the Hohenzollern family because the Elector and Duke John Sigismund had been a Calvinist, as had his confession of faith, and because the Great Elector Frederick William (1640-88) had welcomed into his states the Calvinists driven out of France by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. It was of this authority over the two principal sects of his states that King Frederick William III (1707-1840) availed himself in order to institute the United Evangelical Church. After the wars against Napoleon ended, in 1817, on the occasion of the 3rd centenary of the Reformation, he wished to unite the Lutherans and the Reformed of his states into a single church. He therefore proposed that, setting aside doctrinal differences and each preserving his own symbolic books, all should unite in a spirit of brotherly love to receive together the Lord's Supper. The idea was received rather well, more by the Reformed than by the Lutherans, and was approved by many provincial synods, which asked the king to convene a general synod to study the construction of the new Church, something that pleased neither the king nor his ministers. He then sought to introduce the episcopate, but in the face of the opposition of the Protestants, sensitive to anything that could resemble the abhorred Catholic, he contented himself that they be called superintendents and that among them one should have a certain supervision over all the synods and consistories. What, however, lay closest to the king's heart was the new liturgy composed by himself, drawn from the early Lutheran and Anglican liturgies, still very similar to the Catholic liturgy, and in which he descended to the most minute rubrics. In 1822 he imposed it on all the Churches that depended on him. The opposition this time too was strong, but the king continued forward in his purpose. Among the opponents, Schleiermacher, professor at the University of Berlin, and Scheibel, Lutheran pastor of Breslau in Silesia, stood out. Some of the dissenters emigrated to North America and gave rise to the Synod of Missouri or Ohio and to the Lutheran Synod of Buffalo. The successors of Frederick William III granted greater religious freedom, but even after the Constitution of 1851, by which the Evangelical Church was granted a regime independent of the State, with a skillful distinction between State and prince, the Evangelical Church remained as before subject to the king, who governed it by means of a special council called the "Evangelischer Oberkirchenrat," directly responsible to him, while still permitting provincial synods to be held, and in 1869 a general one as well. This subjection of the Church to the King of Prussia lasted until the Weimar Constitutions (1919), which separated the new Reich from all the Churches. At the Stuttgart assembly of 1921 many of these organized the confederation of the German Evangelical Churches, and of the 29 churches that formed it, the first and most numerous, with about 20,000,000 faithful, was the Evangelical Church of the old Prussian Union.

The Confederation was called Deutsche Evangelische Kirche (D. E. K.), and instituted three departments to replace the various pre-existing authorities: the Kirchentag, a legislative body of laypeople and clergy, the Kirchenbundesrat, or body of counselors, and the Kirchenausschuss, an executive body, in which the Evangelicals still predominated by their number. Thus Hitler found it when he came to power (1933-34). At first he did not appear to show himself averse to the Church, but with the formation of the "German Christians" and with his policy, he soon revealed himself a great enemy of both Catholics and Protestants. The Evangelical Church had to suffer 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 Hitlerian government followed those of all the other German Protestants, and if not a few passed over to the German Christians, quite a few, precisely because of the ruthless persecution of Nazism, were strengthened in religious principles and practices of piety, standing out among all was the minister Martin Niemöller. 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 vicissitudes. In 1949 in the E. K. I. D. 10% was formed by the Reformed, 70% by the Lutherans and 20% by the Evangelicals. At present it seems that all the hope of the Evangelicals and of all German Protestants rests in ecumenism; and in fact all work together in the Hilfswerk or relief work, in which, effectively aided by foreign Protestants, they strive to remedy the calamities caused by the war.

Camillo Crivelli