Short history of the Northelbian Church
1977 to 2002: A quarter of a century of the Northelbian church
It was a “wanted child”. That at least was what the then President of the Synod Hans Mestern, said at the founding of the North¬elbian Evangelical Lutheran Church on 9th January 1977 in Lübeck Cathedral. It had nevertheless taken a long time before the birth could be celebrated. Immediately after the Second World War it was clear that new church structures were necessary in North Germany. The Greater-Hamburg Law from 1937 changed the borders of the city-state of Hamburg so that that they were no longer the same as the borders of the Hamburg State Church. The town of Cuxhaven, about 100 kilometers away continued to belong to this church, but Harburg, almost part of Hamburg did not.
Immediately after the war the suggestion was made to merge the churches in Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein especially as in the most northern Federal State many people were asking whether they really needed three independent regional churches (Schleswig-Holstein, Eutin and Lübeck). What followed were long negotiations and of course there were very different ideas as to how the “wanted child” should look and what it should achieve. The question of the name was solved by going back a long way into history and agreeing on the name “Northelbia” with reference to a church chronicle written by Pastor Helmold von Bosau in the 12th century.
In order that the child should be able to develop its own will, an influential synod was created that determines the direction to be taken as the highest democratic organ of the church. A church parliament has developed that enjoys debate and takes clear positions, that does not ignore any difficult subject or “hot potato”, whether the question of forms of living together, globalisation or the relationship between Christians and Jews. The fact that public opinion in Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein takes note of the Protestant Church as an important voice on controversial questions is mainly thanks to its Synod as well as to the Church Council and the three Bishops. The fact that the first Lutheran female Bishop in the world was elected in Northelbia and that two of the three members of the Bishops collegiate are today women, fills many people with pride and makes it easier for women to identify with their church.
The solid foundations of the church are her 640 church congregations. Here very many people experience church through baptism services, confirmation services, marriage services, Christmas services etc. More than 800 church buildings and chapels are visible signs that the church remains in the village and is also at home in its own suburb of the town. Even if people complain about the costs of renovating the tower or heating the church, for most members of the congregation it is very important to have a church in the place where they live, even for those who only enter it on rare occasions. This becomes quite obvious at the latest when there is talk of selling a church building.
The church congregations were organised into 27 church districts at the founding of the Northelbian Church. These are more than just administrative structures, here cooperation is initiated and organised across congregation borders, from church music and youth work to public relations work. The church districts were cons¬ciously strengthened at the founding of the Northelbian Church in order to have an active level between the local congregations and the church offices in Kiel and the leadership of the church.
The Northelbian Church also has a great wealth of church departments and institutions so that it is possible to work in areas where it would be too much for the individual congregations or the church office. This is the case for example with many diaconal institutions for the sick, the handicapped, the old and the poor of our society. In the meantime these diaconal institutions are having to fight against commercial competitors in order to get state subsidies and other financial support, and that is easier through the diaconal church social services, Diakonisches Werk ( in Hamburg and Rendsburg) and the political weight of the Northelbian Church as a whole.
From the beginning, the Northelbian Church placed great value on bringing their membership in the worldwide ecumenical move¬ment into the daily life of the church. The institutions of world mission, church development service and ecumenical cooperation have brought many ideas and insights from the world church into our own church. The fact that this has fallen on fruitful ground is reflected particularly in the many partnerships existing between congregations and church districts here in the Northelbian Church and in Tanzania, Papua New Guinea and other countries. The Northelbian Church has become more ecumenical than the former regional churches were.
A promising young person has grown up and developed out of the “wanted child”. However even after 25 years things have not become easier. The differences, sometimes even animosities, between the city congregations and church districts and the rural ones continue, and could be debated much more openly and constructively. It has been called “giving shape to diversity”. Reforms are necessary everyone agrees, and everyone understands something different in what they say. The discussions will continue. And the young person will develop further.
Frank Kürschner-Pelkmann
