Carl Ritschl

Georg Carl Benjamin Ritschl ( born 1 November 1783 in Erfurt, † June 18, 1858 in Berlin) was a Protestant theologian, Bishop and General Superintendent of Pomerania.

Life and work

Carl Ritschl was born as a son of the pastor and professor at Erfurt Ratsgymnasium Georg Ritschl Hart Bach and his ( second ) wife Regina Christina Emminghaus. In addition to his education, he received training in singing, piano and organ with the organist Johann Christian Kittel, the last pupil of Johann Sebastian Bach. With fifteen and a half years, he graduated from high school in Erfurt.

Ritschl began in Erfurt the study of theology, which he continued in Jena and in the fall of 1802 as a 19- year-old brought to a conclusion. Still too young for the job as a clergyman took Ritschl in 1804 the activities of a private tutor of the children of Johann Joachim Beller man who went to the Grey Convent of Erfurt to Berlin as head of the school.

In Berlin Ritschl attended the seminar for schools and taught singing and gave religious instruction at Cöllnischen Gymnasium, which was connected to the horror monastery. Prior to 1805, the University of Erfurt he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

In Berlin, Ritschl very dedicated in music. In 1804 he became a member of Carl Friedrich Zelter Liedertafel, for which he also wrote song compositions.

After the Lutheran Upper Consistory in Berlin, he received a confirmation of his stored in Erfurt first theological exam in 1806, he was appointed in 1807 and 1809 Collaborator for Subrektor of Cöllnischen school. In 1808 he was virtually " in between " his Second Theological Examination in Potsdam.

In 1810 finally he finished third preacher at St. Mary's Church in Berlin, but was allowed to retain a number of teaching and singing lessons at the Abbey and the horror Cöllnischen school.

On September 25, 1810 married Carl Ritschl Juliane Meudtner, the daughter of a police commissioner. They were parents of five children, as the wife and mother died suddenly in 1820. On June 18, 1821 Ritschl 's second marriage was Auguste Sebald, a major singer, whose father was a counselor and co-founder of the Sing- Akademie zu Berlin.

Meanwhile Ritschl had advanced into the second preacher at St. Mary's Church and took over 1816 additional tasks in the consistory of the province of Brandenburg, which has been newly built and in which he was initially employed as a consistory as an assessor, in 1817.

In 1821 he became a member of the board of the Sing-Akademie. A year later the Faculty of Theology of the University of Berlin awarded him an honorary doctorate.

In 1827, Carl received Ritschl - the successor of Friedrich Ludwig Engelken the vocation to the Superintendent General of Pomerania in Stettin, with the term of office, the activity of the Konsistorialpräsidenten and the preacher was joined at the Castle Church. How Engelke also received Ritschl the personal title of a bishop. He practiced 27 years from this office at a time that was marked in the Evangelical Church in Prussia by the struggle for the Lutheran confession after the Prussian royal decree of Church Union. In agendas dispute Ritschl was on the side of the king, tried to mediate, but could not prevent in Pomerania that it came in many Lutheran Confessions faithful to break with the national church (of Belowsche movement ), the first as " separatists ", and later in a separate Evangelical Lutheran ( " Old Lutheran " ) church in Prussia took their way.

An important date in the work of Ritschl was from September 1829 to May 1830, a leave of absence from his service in Pomerania: on the request of the Russian government, he went on a business trip to Saint Petersburg to participate in the elaboration of a general law for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Russia.

In Szczecin music life where Ritschl interacted closely with the composer Carl Loewe in the field of cultivation of music, the weekly singing evenings in Ritschl'schen rectory ( Royal Square 818) have been an "institution ".

On October 1, 1854 Carl Ritschl was at his own request to retire. His successor in the office of the General Superintendent D. Albert Sigismund was jasper. He spent his last years in Berlin, until he died there in the age of 75.