Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/723

 EVANGELICAL

645

EVANGELIST

was "the small independent Christian community managing its omi affairs in the spirit of the universal Church" as in the days of the Apostles. The ideal of his minister von Raumer and of Hengstenberg was to train Prussian Unterthanenverstand, i. e. a mentality fit for people under strict authority: believe in Luther, obey the king, and ask no questions. The alliance of politics, Lutheran orthodoxy and pietism, royal cabi- net-orders and counter-orders, general unsettledness and discontent, and five authorized churches instead of one — such was the result of the Union of 1817 in the fourth decade of its existence. Many attempts at a more real and more general union were made on the basis of practical charity, federation, opposition to Catholicism; church conferences were held in Berlin, Wittenberg, ELsenach, and elsewhere; the Gustav- Adolf-Verein and the Inner Mission were founded ; the English Evangelical Alliance was invited to Berlin (1857). The result was greater discord and disruption. William I, who as Regent, King of Prussia, and Ger- man Emperor reigned from 1858 to 1888, was an honest, .single-minded, and industrious ruler. He had little sympathy with the Constitution and none at all with Hengstenberg's agitation for enforcing Lutheran orthodoxy. He maintained the Constitution as the law of the land. But of the orthodox party he said in an address to his newly constituted ministry: ". . .In both Churches [Catholic and Protestant] all endeav- ours to make religion a cloak for politics must be strenuously opposed. In the Evangelical Church — we cannot deny it — an orthodoxy has found a footing which is in contradiction with the fundamental idea of the Union, and which has hypocrites in its train. That orthodoxy has impeded the work of the Union, has almost wrecked it. Now it is my will that the Union be maintained intact ..." Uutil 1866, how- ever, little was done to carry out William's programme ; it was impossible and unadvisable to dismiss all the clerical office-bearers and professors appointed for their opinions during the last eighteen years. The new minister of worship, von Muehler, was dominated by (^ueen Augusta, a highly educated woman devoted to orthodoxy, who suggested candidates for higher

Sositions and insisted on their appointment (Hase, feuelvircheng., 305). By her stood Hengstenberg and Hoffman, a fanatical Swabian. Together they worked for the preservation of the old regime. The Liberal [jurty meanwhile found a common centre and a driv- ing power in theProtenlnntem'crcin(ProtestantVmon), founded in 1863 at Frankfort-on-the-Main with the object of defeating both Protestant and Catholic or- tluxloxy. It spread at fir.st but slowly, as it found little support among the still faithful masses and met with open hostility among the ruling classes. In 1906 it numbered 27,000 members.

After the war with Austria (1860) the acquisition of new territories laid upon William I the task of again regulating the religious situation of his kingdom. The Hengstenberg party proposed a measure which would have dealt the death-blow to the Union, viz. to divide the Supreme Church Council into three senates: a Lutheran, a Reformed, and a United, each with cir- cumscribed territorial jurisdiction. But the Supreme Council refused to take this step and persuaded the king to leave to the new provinces their existing church constitutions as long as they cho.se to main- tain them. This was done. To a deputation from the Hanover Consistorv Williatn I cxprc.s.sed his convic- tion that "the Evangcli(\d UiiioM was best furthered by free and unprejudiced hearts working towards unity in charity." The slight dilliculties which arose locally, e. g. in Hesse, were prnhalily due as much to political as to religious sentiments. The political tmity of Germany achieved through the Franco-German War (1870-71) naturally aroused a strong desire for religious unity in the new empire. Bismarck started the Kulturkampf to bring the Catholics into line

with the Protestant majority, but had to acknowledge himself vanquished in 1886. For the unification of the Protestants in the empire only one way was open: to abolish legal pressure and to allow the vari- ous religious bodies to work out their own salvation in their own way. The emperor, however, was loath to dismiss at once the ministers and officials who had so faithfully stood by him in the war; von Muehler re- tained his post and Empress Augusta her influence; the old system continued for a while with but slight concessions to liberty. The relation between the State and the Evangelical Church was finally fixed by the laws of 10 Sept., 1873, and 30 May, 1876. At the head of the whole organization stands the Supreme Ecclesiastical Council (Oberkirchenrat) in Berlin, con- sisting of twelve regular members, one ecclesiastical vice-president, and a lay president. Under this coun- cil are eight provincial consistories, K6nig.sberg, Ber- lin, Stettin, Breslau, Posen, Magdeburg, Miinster, and Coblenz ; and under them the superintendents num- bering 415. In the Evangelical State Church the two types of Protestantism are united ; no distinction is made between Lutheran and Reformed either in the theological faculties or in the seminaries. Luther's Bible is in common use, the various collections of hymns have no denominational character. The emperor, or Kingof Prussia, is summuse/)i.sco/)Hs, which, however, is a title rather than an office. In matters of faith the royal pronouncements neither claim, nor are they credited with, infallibility ; and matters of administration are left to the councils and consistories elected by the people.

The doctrinal status of the United Evangelical Church in Germany may be fitly described as Modern- ism in the sense of the Encyclical "Pa.scendi". The simple country folk, who practise more than they think, still follow the religion of older generations, but the socialist masses of the towns are either indifferent or openly hostile to all supernatural religion. Owing to the principle .sanctioned in 1(')4S "that all the sub- jects must follow the religion of their ruler" the popu- lation, from a religious point of view, is less mixed in Germany than in England or America. Numerically, the two confessions are in the same proportion as they were 300 years ago: two Protestants to one Catholic. Conversions from one religion to the other almost bal- ance with a slight excess in favour of Protestantism. This is entirely due to mi.xed marriages and temporal allurements. The efforts of proselytizing societies, such as the Gustav- Adolf -Verein, the Protestant and the Evangelical Unions, show but poor results. Statistics from the census of 1900 are as follows: Evangelical Church in Prussia: 8158 parishes with 17,246 churches, etc., 10,071 clergy, and 21,817,577 adherents against 12,110,229 Catholics, which gives the proportion of 5 Catholics to 9 Protestants. P^or the whole German Empire the proportion is 7 Catho- lics to 12 Protestants, i. e. 20, .321,441 to 35,231,104.

No EnKli-'*h work deal-s exhaustively with the subject. Ger- man sources: — Foerster, Die Entstehung dcr preussischcn Landeskirche unter dcr Reaierung Friedrich Withelm III, nnch den Qitdhn (Tubingen, 1905-07); von Hase. Gesch. der prot. Kirchc im 10. Jahrh. (Leipzig, 1S92). 299-308; Hehgenrother, Kirchcngesch. (Freiburg, 1886), III, 919 sqq.; Dollinger, Kirche u. Kirchen, 422 sqq.; tr. MacCabe (London, 1862). J. WiLHELM.

Evangelical Counsels. See Counsels, Evangel- ir.\L.

Evangelist. — In the New Testament this word, in its substantive form, occurs only three times: Acts, xxi, S; Eph., iv, 1 1 ; 1 1 Tim., iv, 5. It seems to indicate not so much an order in the early ecclesiastical hier- archy as .a function. The Apostles, indeed, were evan- gelists, inasmuch ;is they preacheil the Go.spel (Acts, viii, 25; xiv, 20; I ('or., i, 17) ; Philip likewise was both a deacon (Acts, vi, 5) and an evangelist (.\cts, viii, 4-5; 40; xxi, 8); in like matuier was St. Timothy ex- horted by St. Paul to do the work of an evangelist (II Tim., iv, 5).