Evangelical Lutheran Church in Thuringia

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Thuringia (Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Thüringen) was a Lutheran member church of the umbrella Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD). The seat of the church was in Eisenach. The church covered those parts of the state of Thuringia that were not part of the former Province of Saxony. It was the largest Protestant denomination in this area.

After in early November 1918 the grand duke, the dukes and princes of the eight monarchies, later merging into the new State of Thuringia, had abdicated and thus released each of the eight territorial Lutheran church bodies from their respective supreme governorate (summepiscopacy), Lutheran church leaders, among them the Saxe-Altenburgian court preacher Wilhelm Reichardt as one of the driving forces, decided the unification of the church bodies on 15 November 1918. Within seven of these Lutheran church bodies majorities formed to merge, to wit:

Only the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Principality of Reuss Elder Line (Evangelisch-lutherische Kirche des Fürstentums Reuß ältere Linie) refused the merger and renamed as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Reuss Elder Line (German: Evangelisch-lutherische Kirche in Reuß ältere Linie). On 5 December 1919 synodals from the seven other church bodies then convened for the constitutive synod, founding the Thuringian Evangelical Church (Thüringer evangelische Kirche), a Lutheran church body, with effect of 13 February 1920 and Reichardt as its spiritual leader then titled state supreme pastor (Landesoberpfarrer). Three months later all the eight former monarchies merged into the new state of Thuringia.

In 1922 the Thuringian Evangelical Church became a member of the German Evangelical Church Confederation, which was dissolved in 1933 in favour of a united Protestant church for all of Germany, which, however, never materialised due to inner church struggles on the Nazi intrusion in ecclesiastical affairs.

The parishioners within the Thuringia church body voted by a majority for candidates of the Nazi-submissive German Christians in the presbyteries and the synod in the unconstitutional reelection imposed by Hitler on 23 July 1933. Nazi opponents then formed the Confessing Church of Thuringia, gradually pressed into hiding. In 1934 the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Reuss Elder Line with 70,000 parishioners (as of 1922) merged in the Thuringian Evangelical Church, which thus comprised all the area of the state of Thuringia in its borders of 1920. During the struggle of the churches the official submissive church leadership even further radicalised in its extremism as to anti-Semitism and suppression of confessing church adherents.

...
Wikipedia