Part 39

§ 194.6. =Mecklenburg.=--Mecklenburg-Schwerin from 1848 was in possession of a strictly Lutheran church government under the direction of Kliefoth, and its university at Rostock had decidedly Lutheran theologians. When the chamberlain Von Kettenburg, on going over to the Catholic church, appointed a Catholic priest on his estate, the government in 1852, on the ground that the laws of the state did not allow Catholic services which extended beyond simple family worship, held that he had overstepped the limits. A complaint, in reference thereto, presented to the parliament and then to the German _Bund_, was in both cases thrown out. Even in 1863 the Rostock magistrates refused to allow tower and bells in the building of a Catholic church.--An extraordinary excitement was caused by the removal from office in January, 1858, of Professor M. Baumgarten of Rostock. An examination paper set by him on 2 Kings xi. by which the endeavour was made to win scripture sanction for a violent revolution, obliged the government even in 1856 to remove him from the theological examination board. At the same time his polemic addressed to a pastoral conference at Parchim, against the doctrine of the Mecklenburg state catechism on the ceremonial law, especially in reference to the sanctification of the Sabbath, increased the distrust which the clergy of the state, on account of his writings, had entertained against his theological position as one which, from a fanatical basis, diverged on all sides into fundamental antagonism to the confession and the ordinances of the Lutheran state church. The government finally deposed him in 1858 (leaving him, however, in possession of his whole salary, also of the right of public teaching), on the ground and after the publication of a judgment of the consistory which found him guilty of heretical alteration of all the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith and the Lutheran confession, and sought to prove this verdict from his writings. As might have been foreseen, this step was followed by a loud outcry by all journals; but even Lutherans, like Von Hofmann, Von Scheurl [Scheuerl], and Luthardt, objected to the proceedings of the government as exceeding the law laid down by the ecclesiastical ordinance and the opinion of the consistory as resting upon misunderstanding, arbitrary supposition and inconsequent conclusion.

§ 195. BAVARIA.

Catholic Bavaria, originally an electorate, but raised in 1806, by Napoleon’s favour, into a royal sovereignty, to which had been adjudged by the Vienna Congress considerable territories in Franconia and the Palatine of the Rhine with a mainly Protestant population, attempted under Maximilian Joseph (IV.) I., after the manner of Napoleon, despotically to pass a liberal system of church polity, but found itself obliged again to yield, and under Louis I. became again the chief retreat of Roman Catholic ecclesiasticism of the most pronounced ultramontane pattern. It was under the noble and upright king, Maximilian II., that the evangelical church of the two divisions of the kingdom, numbering two-thirds of the population, first succeeded in securing the unrestricted use of their rights. Nevertheless, Catholic Bavaria remained, or became, the unhappy scene of the wildest demagogic agitation of the Catholic clergy and of the Bavarian “Patriots” who played their game, whose patriotism consisted only in mad hatred of Prussia and fanatical ultramontanism. Yet King Louis II., after the brilliant successes of the Franco-German war, could not object to the proposal of November 30th, 1870, to found a new German empire under a Prussian and therefore a Protestant head.

§ 195.1. =The Bavarian Ecclesiastical Polity under Maximilian I., 1799-1825.=--Bavaria boasted with the most unfeigned delight after the uprooting of Protestantism in its borders as then defined (§ 151, 1), that it was the most Catholic, _i.e._ the most ultramontane and most bigoted, of German-speaking lands, and, after a short break in this tradition by Maximilian Joseph III. (§ 165, 10), went forth again with full sail, under Charles Theodore, 1777-1779, on the old course. But the thoroughly new aspect which this state assumed on the overthrow of the old German empire, demanded an adapting territorially of the civil and ecclesiastical life in accordance with the relations which it owed to its present political position. The new elector Maximilian Joseph IV., who as king styled himself Maximilian I., transferred the execution of this task to his liberal, energetic, and thoroughly fearless minister, Count Montgelas, 1799-1817. In January, 1802, it was enacted that all cloisters should be suppressed, and that all cathedral foundations should be secularized; and these enactments were immediately carried out in an uncompromising manner. Even in 1801 the qualification of Protestants to exercise the rights of Bavarian citizens was admitted, and a religious edict of 1803 guaranteed to all Christian confessions full equality of civil and political privileges. To the clergy was given the control of education, and to the gymnasia and universities a considerable number of foreigners and Protestants received appointments. In all respects the sovereignty of the state over the church and the clergy was very decidedly expressed, the episcopate at all points restricted in its jurisdiction, the training of the clergy regulated and supervised on behalf of the state, the patronage of all pastorates and benefices usurped by the government, even public worship subjected to state control by the prohibition of superstitious practices, etc. But amid many other infelicities of this autocratic procedure was specially the gradual dying out of the old race of bishops, which obliged the government to seek again an understanding with Rome; and so it actually happened in June, 1817, after Montgelas’ dismissal, that a concordat was drawn up. By this the Roman Catholic apostolic religion secured throughout the whole kingdom those rights and prerogatives which were due to it according to divine appointment and canonical ordinances, which, strictly taken, meant supremacy throughout the land. In addition, two archbishoprics and seven bishoprics were instituted, the restoration of several cloisters was agreed to, and the unlimited administration of theological seminaries, the censorship of books, the superintendance of public schools and free correspondence with the holy see were allowed to the bishops. On the other hand, the king was given the choice of bishops (to be confirmed by the pope), the nomination of a great part of the priests and canons, and the _placet_ for all hierarchical publications. After many vain endeavours to obtain amendments, the king at last, on October 17th, ratified this concordat; but, to mollify his highly incensed Protestant subjects, he delayed the publication of it till the proclamation of the new civil constitution on May 18th following. The concordat was then adopted, as an appendage to an edict setting forth the ecclesiastical supremacy of the state, securing perfect freedom of conscience to all subjects, as well as equal civil rights to members of the three Christian confessions, and demanding from them equal mutual respect. The irreconcilableness of this edict with the concordat was evident, and the newly appointed bishops as well as the clerical parliamentary deputies, declared by papal instruction that they could not take the oath to the constitution without reservation, until the royal statement of Tegernsee, September 21st, that the oath taken by Catholic subjects simply referred to civil relations, and that the concordat had also the validity of a law of the state, induced the curia to agree to it. But the government nevertheless continued to insist as before upon the supremacy of the state over the church, enlarged the claims of the royal _placet_, put the free intercourse with Rome again under state control, arbitrarily disposed of church property and supervised the theological examinations of the seminarists, made the appointment of all clergy dependent on its approbation, and refused to be misled in anything by the complaints and objections of the bishops.

§ 195.2. =The Bavarian Ecclesiastical Polity under Louis I., 1825-1848.=--Zealous Catholic as the new king was, he still held with unabated tenacity to the sovereign rights of the crown, and the extreme ultramontane ministry of Von Abel from 1837 was the first to wring from him any relaxations, _e.g._ the reintroduction of free intercourse between the bishops and the holy see without any state control. But it could not obtain the abolition of the _placet_, and just as little the eagerly sought permission of the return of the Jesuits. On the other hand the allied order of Redemptorists was allowed, whose missions among the Bavarian people, however, the king soon made dependent on a permission to be from time to time renewed. His tolerant disposition toward the Protestants was shown in 1830, by his refusing the demand of the Catholic clergy for a Reverse in mixed marriages, and recognising Protestant sponsors at Catholic baptisms. But yet his honourable desire to be just even to the Protestants of his realm was often paralysed, partly by his own ultramontane sympathies, partly and mainly by the immense influence of the Abel ministry, and the religious freedom guaranteed them by law in 1818 was reduced and restricted. Among other things the Protestant press was on all sides gagged by the minister, while the Catholic press and preaching enjoyed unbridled liberty. Great as the need was in southern Bavaria the government had strictly forbidden the taking of any aid from the _Gustavus Adolphus Verein_. Louis saw even in the name of this society a slight thrown on the German name, and was specially offended at its vague, nearly negative attitude towards the confession. Yet he had no hesitation in affording an asylum in Catholic Bavaria to the Lutheran confessor Scheibel (§ 177, 2) whom Prussian diplomacy had driven out of Lutheran Saxony, and did not prevent the university of Erlangen, after its dead orthodoxy had been reawakened by the able Reformed preacher Krafft (died 1845), becoming the centre of a strict Lutheran church consciousness in life as well as science for all Germany. The adoration order of 1838, which required even the Protestant soldiers to kneel before the host as a military salute, occasioned great discontent among the Protestant population, and many controversial pamphlets appeared on both sides. When finally the parliament in 1845 took up the complaint of the Protestants, a royal proclamation followed by which the usually purely military salute formerly in use was restored. In 1847 the ultramontane party, with Abel at its head, fell into disfavour with the king, on account of its honourable attitude in the scandal which the notorious Lola Montez caused in the circle of the Bavarian nobility; but in 1848 Louis was obliged, through the revolutionary storm that burst over Bavaria, to resign the crown.

§ 195.3. =The Bavarian Ecclesiastical Polity under Maximilian II., 1848-1864, and Louis II.= (died 1886).--Much more thoroughly than his father did Maximilian II. strive to act justly toward the Protestant as well as the Catholic church, without however abating any of the claims of constitutional supremacy on the part of the state. In consequence of the Würzburg negotiations (§ 192, 4), the Bavarian bishops assembled at Freysing, in November, 1850, presented a memorial, in which they demanded the withdrawal of the religious edict included in the constitution of 1818, as in all respects prejudicial to the rights of the church granted by the concordat, and set forth in particular those points which were most restrictive to the free and proper development of the catholic church. The result was the publication in April, 1852, of a rescript which, while maintaining all the principles of state administration hitherto followed, introduced in detail various modifications, which, on the renewal of the complaints in 1854, were somewhat further increased as the fullest and final measure of surrender.--The change brought about 1866 in the relation of Bavaria to North Germany led the government under Louis II. to introduce liberal reforms, and the offensive and defensive alliance which the government concluded with the heretical Prussia, the failure of all attempts on the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war to force it in violation of treaty to maintain neutrality, and then to prevent Bavaria becoming part of the new German empire founded in 1871 at the suggestion of her own king, roused to the utmost the wrath of the Bavarian clerical patriots. In the conflicts of the German government, in 1872, against the intolerable assumptions, claims and popular tumults of the ultramontane clergy, the department of public worship, led by Lutz, inclined to take an energetic part. But this was practically limited to the passing of the so-called _Kanzelparagraphen_ (§ 197, 4) in the _Reichstag_. Comp. § 197, 14.

§ 195.4. =Attempts at Reorganization of the Lutheran Church.=--Since 1852, Dr. von Harless (§ 182, 13), as president of the upper consistory at Munich, stood at the head of the Lutheran church of Bavaria. Under his presidency the general synod at Baireuth in 1853 showed a vigorous activity in the reorganization of the church. On the basis of its proceedings the upper consistory ordered the introduction of an admirable new hymnbook. This occasioned considerable disagreement. But when, in 1856, the upper consistory issued a series of enactments on worship and discipline, a storm, originating in Nuremberg, burst forth in the autumn of that same year, which raged over the whole kingdom and attacked even the state church itself. The king was assailed with petitions, and the spiritual courts went so far in faint-heartedness as to put the acceptance and non-acceptance of its ordinances to the vote of the congregations. Meanwhile the time had come for calling another general synod (1857). An order of the king as head of the church abolished the union of the two state synods in a general synod which had existed since 1849, and forbad all discussion of matters of discipline. Hence instead of one, two synods assembled, the one in October at Anspach, the other in November at Baireuth. Both, consisting of equal numbers of lay and clerical members, maintained a moderate attitude, relinquishing none of the privileges of the church or the prerogatives of the upper consistory, and yet contributed greatly to the assuaging of the prevalent excitement. Also the lay and clerical members of the subsequent reunited general synods held every fourth year for the most part co-operated successfully on moderate church lines. The synod held at Baireuth in 1873 unanimously rejected an address sent from Augsburg inspired by “Protestant Union” sympathies, as to their mind “for the most part indistinct and where distinct unevangelical.”

§ 195.5. =The Church of the Union in the Palatine of the Rhine.=--In the Bavarian =Palatine of the Rhine= the union had been carried out in 1818 on the understanding that the symbolical books of both confessions should be treated with due respect, but no other standard recognised than holy scripture. When therefore the Erlangen professor, Dr. Rust, in 1832 appeared in the consistory at Spires and the court for that time had endeavoured to fill up the Palatine union with positive Christian contents, 204 clerical and lay members of the Diocesan Synod presented to the assembly of the states of the realm, opportunely meeting in 1837, a complaint against the majority of the consistory. As this memorial yielded practically no result, the opposition wrought all the more determinedly for the severance of the Palatine church from the Munich Upper Consistory. This was first accomplished in the revolutionary year 1848. An extraordinary general synod brought about the separation, and gave to the country a new democratic church constitution. But the reaction of the blow did not stop there. The now independent consistory at Spires, from 1853 under the leadership of Ebrard, convened in the autumn of that year a general synod, which made the _Augustana Variata_ of 1540 as representing the consensus between the _Augustana_ of 1530 and the Heidelberg as well as the Lutheran catechism, the confessional standard of the Palatine church, and set aside the democratic election law of 1848. When now the consistory, purely at the instance of the general synod of 1853, submitted to the diocesan synod in 1856 the proofs of a new hymnbook, the liberal party poured out its bitter indignation upon the system of doctrine which it was supposed to favour. But the diocesan synods admitted the necessity of introducing a new hymnbook and the suitability of the sketch submitted, recommending, however, its further revision so that the recension of the text might be brought up to date and that an appendix of 150 new hymns might be added. The hymnbook thus modified was published in 1859, and its introduction into church use left to the judgment of presbyteries, while its use in schools and in confirmation instruction was insisted upon forthwith. This called forth protest after protest. The government wished from the first to support the synodal decree, but in presence of growing disturbance, changed its attitude, recommended the consistory to observe decided moderation so as to restore peace, and in February, 1861, called a general synod which, however, in consequence of the prevailingly strict ecclesiastical tendencies of its members, again expressed itself in favour of the new hymnbook. Its conclusions were meanwhile very unfavourably received by the government. Ebrard sought and obtained liberty to resign, and even at the next synod, in 1869, the consistory went hand in hand with the liberal majority.

§ 196. THE SOUTH GERMAN SMALLER STATES AND RHENISH ALSACE AND LORRAINE.

The Protestant princely houses of South Germany had by the Lüneville [Luneville] Peace obtained such an important increase of Catholic subjects, that they had to make it their first care to arrange their delicate relations by concluding a concordat with the papal curia in a manner satisfactory to state and church. But all negotiations broke down before the exorbitant claims of Rome, until the political restoration movements of 1850 led to modifications of them hitherto undreamed of. The concordats concluded during this period were not able to secure enforcement over against the liberal current that had set in with redoubled power in 1860, and so one thing after another was thrown overboard. Even in the Protestant state churches this current made itself felt in the persistent efforts, which also proved successful, to secure the restoration of a representative synodal constitution which would give to the lay element in the congregations a decided influence.

§ 196.1. =The Upper Rhenish Church Province.=--The governments of the South German States gathered in 1818 at Frankfort, to draw up a common concordat with Rome. But owing to the utterly extravagant pretensions nothing further was reached than a new delimitation in the bull “_Provida sollersque_,” 1821, of the bishoprics in the so-called Upper Rhenish Church Province: the archbishopric of Freiburg for Baden and the two Hohenzollern principalities, the bishoprics of Mainz for Hesse-Darmstadt, Fulda for Hesse-Cassel, Rottenburg for Württemberg, Limburg for Nassau and Frankfort; and even this was given effect to only in 1827, after long discussions, with the provision (bull _Ad dominicæ gregis custodiam_) that the choice of the bishops should issue indeed from the chapter, but that the territorial lord might strike out objectionable names in the list of candidates previously submitted to him. The actual equality of Protestants and Catholics which the pope had not been able to allow in the concordat, was now in 1880 proclaimed by the princes as the law of the land. Papal and episcopal indulgences had to receive approval before their publication; provincial and diocesan synods could be held only with approval of the government and in presence of the commissioners of the prince; taxes could not be imposed by any ecclesiastical court; appeal could be made to the civil court against abuse of spiritual power; those preparing for the priesthood should receive scientific training at the universities, practical training in the seminaries for priests, etc. The pope issued a brief in which he characterized these conditions as scandalous novelties, and reminded the bishops of Acts v. 29. But only the Bishop of Fulda followed this advice, with the result that the Catholic theological faculty at Marburg was after a short career closed again, and the education of the priests given over to the seminary at Fulda. Hesse-Darmstadt founded a theological faculty at Giessen in 1830; Baden had one already in Freiburg, and Würtemberg [Württemberg] had in 1817 affiliated the faculty at Ellwanger with the university of Tübingen, and endowed it with the revenues of a rich convent. In all these faculties alongside of rigorous scientific exactness there prevailed a noble liberalism without the surrender of the fundamental Catholic faith. The revolutionary year, 1848, first gave the bishops the hope of a successful struggle for the unconditional freedom of the church. In order to enforce the Würzburg decrees (§ 192, 4), the five bishops issued in 1851 a joint memorial. As the governments delayed their answer, they declared in 1852 that they would immediately act as if all had been granted them; and when at last the answer came, on most points unfavourable, they said in 1853, that, obeying God rather than man, they would proceed wholly in accordance with canon law.