Church Order (Lutheran)
Church order hot today the church constitutions (partly including the ecclesiastical order of life ) of some Protestant state churches in Germany. In addition, church order is the technical term for a genuinely new set of material legal texts that arise in the wake of the Reformation. Starting from Germany arise church orders in Europe (eg in Switzerland and in France ecclésiastiques as ordonnances ).
Lately, the term " church order " used for texts from the time of the early church, which deal with management structures and liturgical regulations, such as the Didache.
History
In the subrogated to the Reformation Cities and Territories a lawless condition was caused by the rejection of episcopal and papal jurisdiction and canon law, pursued into the spiritualists with radical eschatological and egalitarian ideas. The introduction of the Reformation ( " evangelical " ) church orders marked the beginning of a phase of consolidation.
On top of that since the late 15th century in some parts of the Catholic Church on the other hand, many princes had made to certain areas of the legislation before the Reformation influence because of the decline of imperial power on the one hand and of the moral decay that after the law then in understanding the Church actually in the part of the area would have (for example, authority over the priests, marriage law, poor relief ).
As steps on the way to writing embossed Reformation church orders are the order of Wittenberg 1521 ( Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt ) and the model developed by Luther developed for the city Leisnig Leisniger caste system of 1523 to call. The 1528 written by Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon orders for visitation of Electoral Saxony represent a further point to a systematic approach to the enforcement of ecclesiastical order in the outgoing of Wittenberg Reformation movement dar. Important early church orders are then the church orders of Johann Bugenhagen (eg. Braunschweig in 1528, Lubeck 1531 and Wolfenbüttel 1543) and the common church order of the Margraviate of Brandenburg and the imperial city of Nuremberg from 1533 by Andreas Osiander.
Widespread dissemination found the church orders, but only after 1555, when, after the Peace of Augsburg, the embossed by the Lutheran Reformation principalities and imperial cities had reached an imperial law permanently secured position of their denomination article. It has often been re-drafted its own church constitution not for all principality, or of any city, but few systems have been adopted by numerous territories, often with only a few changes. Particularly influential were in northern Germany which written by Johannes Bugenhagen church orders, and later the church order for Mecklenburg, written in 1552 by Philipp Melanchthon, and submitted in Southern Germany for Württemberg in 1553 by Johannes Brenz.
To be mentioned are next to the Reformed (ie Calvinist ) Church Order for the Palatinate in 1563 and resolutions of the Convention of Wesel 1568th
Content
Church orders regulate today mostly the confession booth, the responsibilities of line departments, the ordination and visitation authority that the liturgical regulations, or the rights and obligations of the community ( with ) members and church officials.
Before 1918, were mainly in Germany through close association of " throne and altar " because of the sovereign church government but also large areas that today the social law are such as school law, poor and social welfare, public order (after damaligem parlance: the "good policey " ) and especially marriage law in the area of " church order ".
Texts
The historically significant church orders of the Reformation period are edited in a comprehensive source output, which was begun in 1902 by Emil Erlanger canon Sehling and is today managed by the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences.