St.-Jakobus-Bruderschaft

The St. James Brotherhood is an ecumenical Christian community that works for the rapprochement between the Protestant and Catholic churches. She is a spiritual community with binding pledges under the guidance of superiors, with Protestant and Catholic members.

Principle

The community bears the name of James, a relative of Jesus and head of the early church in Jerusalem, which invokes in his letter to consistently lived faith. According to the Acts of the Apostles, he pointed the way for facilitating the coexistence of the Gentile Christians with the Jewish Christians. For a reunited Christendom it means: Spacious freedom in the exercise of piety. It should apply what core belief is in the Catholic Church: Sticking to the transubstantiation of the Eucharistic elements into the body and blood of Christ, abiding Petrine ministry to preserve and strengthen the internal unity of the Church, and the honor of Mary to their particular position in the divine plan of salvation.

Leitmotifs are the " evangelical counsels " depending on stand life from the spirit of the rule means: Daily prayer for unity, daily Bible reading by the Church " lectio continua "; personal confession and absolution; several days of setup time per year is compulsory. Participation in other events, we recommend retreats. Prayers at the meetings are held according to the order of the Tagzeitengottesdienste. The Evangelical Mass is celebrated in accordance with the Lutheran " Form B " using liturgical texts of the Catholic community fair. Behalf of the Brotherhood is the bridge service between denominations and prayer service for the unity of the Church. This concern is also the issue of the quarterly journal appearing " blocks for the unity of Christians."

History

The spiritual community was founded in 1965 out of the 1960 Federation of Protestant- Catholic unity forth. Among the founders of the Federal belonged Max Lackmann, Paul Hacker and Gustav chicken. In the 60s there were differences on the relationship with the two official churches. Lackmann called for the elimination of the existing churches and the establishment of a Protestant-Catholic Union church could not prevail with his view and therefore came out in 1969 from the federal government and brotherhood.