Jauno Draudžu Izveide 20.-30. Gadu Latvijas Evaņģēliski Luteriskajā Baznīcā: Strategy of establishing new parishes in the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church in the 1920ies - 30ies.
In the 1920ies the process of establishing new parishes was affected by changes in structure of the Lutheran churches in the Baltic - from consistorial to synodal. There was no general strategy (except Latgale) to reach that aim. Instead, the Latvian Lutheran Church tried to merge smaller churces an...
| Published in: | Cel̜š |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | Latvian |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
LU Akadēmiskais apgāds
2010
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| In: |
Cel̜š
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| Further subjects: | B
PARISHES
B LATVIA B Minorities B Evangelical Lutheran Church B Repatriation B CHURCH building design & construction B ESTONIANS B Ethnic relations B GERMANS B Lutheran church buildings B SWEDES |
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Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | In the 1920ies the process of establishing new parishes was affected by changes in structure of the Lutheran churches in the Baltic - from consistorial to synodal. There was no general strategy (except Latgale) to reach that aim. Instead, the Latvian Lutheran Church tried to merge smaller churces and restructure branch parishes into separate parishes. In the late 30ies the Central Board favoured a practice that the Latvian parishes used the German Lutheran Church buildings abandoned due to the repatriation of the German population. The majority of parishes approved by the Central Board were related to the former branch churches. It was enough to elect a new board and to allocate an old church building to a new parish, formed from the previous church-goers. These independent parishes could be divided into two categories: 1) a parish, financially independent enough to provide a pastor with an apartment, there were 7 such parishes; 2) there were 47 parishes separated only formally, they continued to hire a pastor from the former main parish. Advantage gained from the restructuring of the Lutheran Church was the believers' right to establish a completely new community. Apart from the parishes of ethnic minorities - Germans, Swedes or Estonians -, the number of Lutheran parishes in Riga grew primarily with parishes linked to certain professional communities (for example, the Academic parish that aimed at serving the educated circles) or other groups of special needs or interests - two parishes of the people with impaired eyesight and hearing, and three parishes formed by various, primarily, pietistic spiritual movements. Therefore the success of the development in the religious life of the inter-war state of Latvia offered by various authors have to be analysed according to facts. There was no real reason for the statement made by the exile Latvian Lutheran pastor and historian E. Lange that the number of parishes had doubled - from 173 parishes in 1919 to 308 in 1937 and that they all were provided with their own church buildings. We conclude that new parishes in Latvia in the 20ies - 30ies had not been established due to demographic changes or better developed pastoral care but due to restructring of a network of churches the new Latvian Lutheran Church inherited from the previous centuries. The only exception was the newly established deanery in Latgale where national political interests had to be stregthened by weakening the regional monopoly of Catholicism that was oriented towards Poland and Lithuania. Due to the small number of worshippers Lutheran communities in Latgale remained in the status of minority. |
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| Contains: | Enthalten in: Cel̜š
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