Chapter XVI: Part 16

§ 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.

§ 196.2. =The Catholic Troubles in Baden down to 1873.=--The
Grand Duchy of Baden, with two-thirds of its population Catholic,
where in 1848 the revolution had shattered all the foundations
of the state, and where besides a young ruler had taken the
reins of government in his hands only in 1852, seemed in spite
of the widely prevalent liberality of its clergy, the place best
fitted for such an attempt. The Archbishop of Freiburg, =Herm.
von Vicari=, in 1852, now in his eighty-first year, began by
arbitrarily stopping, on the evening of May 9th, the obsequies of
the deceased grand-duke appointed by the Catholic Supreme Church
Council for May 10th, prohibiting at the same time the saying
of mass for the dead (_pro omnibus defunctis_) usual at Catholic
burials, but in Baden and Bavaria hitherto not refused even to
Protestant princes. More than one hundred priests, who disobeyed
the injunction, were sentenced to perform penances. In the
following year he openly declared that he would forthwith carry
out the demands of the episcopal memorial, and did so immediately
by appointing priests in the exercise of absolute authority;
and by holding entrance examinations to the seminary without
the presence of royal commissioners as required by law. As a
warning remained unheeded, the government issued the order that
all episcopal indulgences must before publication be subscribed
by a grand-ducal special commissioner appointed for the purpose.
Against him, as well as against all the members of the Supreme
Church Council, the archbishop proclaimed the ban, issued a
fulminating pastoral letter, which was to have been read with
the excommunication in all churches, and ordered preaching for
four weeks for the instruction of the people on these matters.
At the same time he solemnly protested against all supremacy
of the state over the church. The government drove the Jesuits
out of the country, forbad the reading of the pastoral, and
punished disobedient priests with fines and imprisonment.
But the archbishop, spurred on by Ketteler, Bishop of Mainz,
advanced more boldly and recklessly than ever. In May, 1854,
the government introduced a criminal process against him,
during the course of which he was kept prisoner in his own house.
The attempts of his party to arouse the Catholic population
by demonstrations had no serious result. At the close of the
investigation the archbishop was released from his confinement
and continued the work as before. The government, however, still
remained firm, and punished every offence. In June, 1855, however,
a provisional agreement was published, and finally in June, 1859,
a formal concordat, the bull _Æterni patris_, was concluded with
Rome, its concessions to the archbishop almost exceeding even
those of Austria (§ 198, 2). In spite of ministerial opposition
the second chamber in March, 1860, brought up the matter before
its tribunal, repudiated the right of the government to conclude
a convention with Rome without the approbation of the states of
the realm, and forbad the grand-duke to enforce it. He complied
with this demand, dismissed the ministry, insisted, in answer
to the papal protest, on his obligation to respect the rights of
the constitution, and on October 9th, 1860, sanctioned jointly
with the chambers a law on the legal position of the Catholic and
Protestant churches in the state. The archbishop indeed declared
that the concordat could not be abolished on one side, and still
retain the force of law, but in presence of the firm attitude
of the government he desisted, and satisfied himself with giving
in 1861 a grudging acquiescence, by which he secured to himself
greater independence than before in regard to imposing of dues
and administration of the church property. Conflicts with the
archbishop, however, and with the clerical minority in the
chamber, still continued. The archbishop died in 1868. His see
remained vacant, as the chapter and the government could not
agree about the list of candidates; the interim administration
was carried on by the vicar-general, Von Kübel (died 1881),
as administrator of the archdiocese, quite in the spirit of
his predecessor. The law of October 9th, 1860, had prescribed
evidence of general scientific culture as a condition of
appointment to an ecclesiastical office in the Protestant as well
as the Catholic church. Later ordinances required in addition:
Possession of Baden citizenship, having passed a favourable
examination on leaving the university, a university course of at
least two and half years, attendance upon at least three courses
of lectures in the philosophical faculty, and finally also an
examination before a state examining board, within one and half
years of the close of the university curriculum, in the Latin
and Greek languages, history of philosophy, general history,
and the history of German literature (later also the so called
_Kulturexamen_). The Freiburg curia, however, protested, and in
1867 forbad clergy and candidates to submit to this examination
or to seek a dispensation from it. The result was, that forthwith
no clergymen could be definitely appointed, but up to 1874 no
legal objection was made to interim appointments of parochial
administrators. The educational law of 1868 abolished the
confessional character of the public schools. In 1869 state
recognition was withdrawn from the festivals of Corpus Christi,
the holy apostles, and Mary, as also, on the other hand, from the
festivals of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. In 1870 obligatory
civil marriage was introduced, while all compulsion to observe
the baptismal, confirmational, and funeral rites of the church
was abolished, and a law on the legal position of benevolent
institutions was passed to withdraw these as much as possible
from the administration of the ecclesiastical authorities. On
the subsequent course of events in Baden, see § 197, 14.

§ 196.3. =The Protestant Troubles in Baden.=--The union of the
Lutheran and Reformed churches was carried out in the Grand Duchy
of Baden in 1821. It recognised the normative significance of the
_Augustana_, as well as the Lutheran and Heidelberg catechisms,
in so far as by it the free examination of scripture as the
only source of Christian faith, is again expressly demanded
and applied. A synod of 1834 provided this state church with
union-rationalistic agenda, hymnbook, and catechism. When there
also a confessional Lutheran sentiment began again in the
beginning of 1850 to prevail, the church of the union opposed
this movement by gensdarmes, imprisonment and fines. The pastor
Eichhorn, and later also the pastor Ludwig, with a portion
of their congregations left the state church and attached
themselves to the Breslau Upper Church Conference, but amid
police interference could minister to their flocks only under
cloud of night. After long refusal the grand-duke at last in
1854 permitted the separatists the choice of a Lutheran pastor,
but persistently refused to recognise Eichhorn as such. Pastor
Haag, who would not give up the Lutheran distribution formula
at the Lord’s supper, was after solemn warning deposed in 1855.
On the other hand the positive churchly feeling became more
and more pronounced in the state church itself. In 1854 the old
rationalist members of the Supreme Church Council were silenced,
and Ullmann of Heidelberg was made president. Under his auspices
a general synod of 1855 presented a sketch of new church and
school books on the lines of the union consensus, with an
endeavour also to be just to the Lutheran views. The grand-duke
confirmed the decision and the country was silent. But when in
1858 the Supreme Church Council, on the ground of the Synodal
decision of 1855, promulgated the general introduction of a
new church book, a violent storm broke out through the country
against the liturgical novelties contained therein (extension
of the liturgy by confession of sin and faith, collects,
responses, Scripture reading, kneeling at the supper, the making
a confession of their faith by sponsors), the Heidelberg faculty,
with Dr. Schenkel at its head, leading the opposition in the
Supreme Church Council. Yet Hundeshagen, who in the synod had
opposed the introduction of a new agenda, entered the lists
against Schenkel and others as the apologist of the abused church
book. The grand-duke then decided that no congregation should be
obliged to adopt the new agenda, while the introduction of the
shorter and simpler form of it was recommended. The agitations
these awakened caused its rejection by most of the congregations.
Meanwhile in consequence of the concordat revolution in 1860, a
new liberal ministry had come into power, and the government now
presented to the chambers a series of thoroughly liberal schemes
for regulating the affairs of the evangelical church, which
were passed by large majorities. Toward the end of the year the
government, by deposing the Supreme Church Councillor Heintz,
began to assume the patronage of the supreme ecclesiastical court.
Ullmann and Bähr tendered their resignations, which were accepted.
The new liberal Supreme Church Council, including Holtzmann,
Rothe, etc., now published a sketch of a church constitution on
the lines of ecclesiastical constitutionalism, which with slight
modifications the synod of July, 1861, adopted and the grand-duke
confirmed. It provided for annual diocesan synods of lay and
clerical members, and a general synod every five years. The
latter consists of twenty-four clerical and twenty-four lay
members, and six chosen by the grand-duke, besides the prelate,
and is represented in the interval by a standing committee of
four members, who have also a seat and vote in the Supreme Church
Council.--Dr. Schenkel’s “_Leben Jesu_” of 1864 led the still
considerable party among the evangelical clergy who adhered to
the doctrine of the church to agitate for his removal from his
position as director of the Evangelical Pastors’ Seminary at
Heidelberg; but it resulted only in this, that no one was obliged
to attend his lectures. The second synod, held almost a year
behind time in 1867, passed a liberal ordination formula. At the
next synod in 1871, the orthodox pietistic party had evidently
become stronger, but was still overborne by the liberal party,
whose strength was in the lay element. Meanwhile a praiseworthy
moderation prevailed on both sides, and an effort was made
to work together as peaceably as possible.--In Heidelberg a
considerable number attached to the old faith, dissatisfied
with the preaching of the four “Free Protestant” city pastors,
after having been in 1868 refused their request for the joint use
of a city church for private services in accordance with their
religious convictions (§ 180, 1), had built for this purpose a
chapel of their own, in which numerously attended services were
held under the direction of Professor Frommel of the gymnasium.
When a vacancy occurred in one of the pastorates in 1880, this
believing minority, anxious for the restoration of unity and
peace, as well as the avoidance of the separation, asked to
have Professor Frommel appointed to the charge. At a preliminary
assembly of twenty-one liberal church members this proposal was
warmly supported by the president, Professor Bluntschli, by all
the theological professors, with the exception of Schenkel and
eighteen other liberal voters, and agreed to by the majority of
the two hundred liberals constituting the assembly. But when the
formal election came round the proposal was lost by twenty-seven
to fifty-one votes.

§ 196.4. =Hesse-Darmstadt and Nassau.=--In 1819 the government
of the Grand Duchy of =Hesse= recommended the union of all
=Protestant= communities under one confession. Rhenish Hesse
readily agreed to this, and there in 1822 the union was
accomplished. In the other provinces, however, it did not take
effect, although by the rationalism fostered at Giessen among the
clergy and by the popular current of thought in the communities,
the Lutheran as well as the Reformed confession had been robbed
of all significance. But since 1850 even there a powerful
Lutheran reaction among the younger clergy, zealously furthered
by a section of the aristocracy of the state, set in, especially
in the district on the right bank of the Rhine, which has eagerly
opposed the equally eager struggles of the liberal party to
introduce a liberal synodal representative constitution for the
evangelical church of the whole state. These endeavours, however,
were frustrated, and at an extraordinary state synod of 1873, on
all controverted questions, the middle party gave their vote in
favour of the absorptive union. The state church was declared
to be the united church. The clause that had been added to the
government proposal: “Without prejudice to the status of the
confessions of the several communities,” was dropped; the place
of residence and not the confession was that which determined
qualifications in the community; the ordination now expressed
obligation to the Reformation confessions generally, etc. The
members of the minority broke off their connection with the
synod, and seventy-seven pastors presented to the synod a protest
against its decisions. The grand-duke then, on the basis of
these deliberations, gave forthwith a charter to the church
constitution, in which indeed the Lutheran, Reformed, and United
churches were embraced in one evangelical state church with
a common church government; but still also, by restoring the
phrase struck out by the synod from § 1, the then existing
confessional status of the several communities was preserved and
the confession itself declared beyond the range of legislation.
Yet fifteen Lutheran pastors represented that they could not
conscientiously accept this, and the upper consistory hastened to
remove them from office shortly before the shutting of the gates,
_i.e._, before July 1st, 1875, when by the new law (§ 197, 15)
depositions of clergy would belong only to the supreme civil
court. The opposing congregations now declared, in 1877, their
withdrawal from the state church, and constituted themselves as
a “free Lutheran church in Hesse.”--The =Catholic= church in the
Grand Duchy of Hesse, had under the peaceful bishops of Mainz,
Burg (died 1833) and Kaiser (died 1849), caused the government no
trouble. But it was otherwise after Kaiser’s death. Rome rejected
Professor Leopold Schmid of Giessen, favoured at Darmstadt
and regularly elected by the chapter (§ 187, 3), and the
government yielded to the appointment of the violent ultramontane
Westphalian, Baron von Ketteler. His first aim was the extinction
of the Catholic faculty at Giessen (§ 191, 2); he rested not
until the last student had been transferred from it to the
newly erected seminary at Mainz (1851). No less energetic and
successful were his endeavours to free the Catholic church from
the supremacy of the state in accordance with the Upper Rhenish
episcopal memorial. The Dalwigk ministry, in 1854, concluded a
“provisional agreement” with the bishop, which secured to him
unlimited autonomy and sovereignty in all ecclesiastical matters,
and, to satisfy the pope with his desiderata, these privileges
were still further extended in 1856. To this convention, first
made publicly known in 1860, the ministry, in spite of all
addresses and protests, adhered with unfaltering tenacity,
although long convinced of its consequences. The political events
of 1886, however, led the grand-duke in September of that year
to abrogate the hateful convention. But the minister as well
as the bishop considered this merely to refer to the episcopal
convention of 1850, and treated the agreement with the pope of
1856 as always still valid. So everything went on in the old way,
even after Ketteler’s supreme influence in the state had been
broken by the overthrow of Dalwigk in 1871. Comp. § 197, 15.--The
Protestant church in the Duchy of =Nassau= attached itself to
the union in 1817. The conflict in the Upper Rhenish church
overflowed even into this little province. The Bishop of Limburg,
in opposition to law and custom, appointed Catholic clergy on
his own authority, and excommunicated the Catholic officers
who supported the government, while the government arrested the
temporalities and instituted criminal proceedings against bishop
and chapter. After the conclusion of the Württemberg and Baden
concordats, the government showed itself disposed to adopt a
similar way out of the conflict, and in spite of all opposition
from the States concluded in 1861 a convention with the bishop,
by which almost all his hierarchical claims were admitted. Thus
it remained until the incorporation of Nassau in the Prussian
kingdom in 1866.

§ 196.5. In =Protestant Württemberg= a religious movement among
the people reached a height such as it attained nowhere else.
Pietism, chiliasm, separatism, the holding of conventicles,
etc., assumed formidable dimensions; solid science, philosophical
culture, and then also philosophical and destructive critical
tendencies issuing from Tübingen affected the clergy of this
state. Dissatisfaction with various novelties in the liturgy,
the hymnbook, etc., led many formally to separate from the
state church. After attempts at compulsion had proved fruitless,
the government allowed the malcontents under the organizing
leadership of the burgomaster, G. W. Hoffman (died 1846), to form
in 1818 the community of Kornthal, with an ecclesiastical and
civil constitution of its own after the apostolic type. Others
emigrated to South Russia and to North America (§ 211, 6, 7).
Out of the pastoral work of pastor Blumhardt at Möttlingen, who
earnestly preached repentance, there was developed, in connection
with the healing of a demoniac, which had been accompanied with a
great awakening in the community, the “gift” of healing the sick
by absolution and laying on of hands with contrite believing
prayer. Blumhardt, in order to afford this gift undisturbed
exercise, bought the Bad Boll near Göppingen, and officiated
there as pastor and miraculous healer in the way described. He
died in 1880.--After the way to a synodal representation of the
whole evangelical state church had been opened up in 1851 by
the introduction, according to a royal ordinance, of parochial
councils and diocesan synods, the consistory having also in
1858 published a scheme referring thereto, the whole business
was brought to a standstill, until at last in 1867, by means
of a royal edict, the calling of a State Synod consisting of
twenty-five clerical and as many lay members was ordered, and
consequently in February, 1869, such a synod met for the first
time. Co-operation in ecclesiastical legislation was assigned
to it as its main task, while it had also the right to advise
in regard to proposals about church government, also to make
suggestions and complaints on such matters, but the confession
of the evangelical church was not to be touched, and lay entirely
outside of its province. A liberal enactment with regard to
dissenters was sanctioned by the chamber in 1870.

§ 196.6. =The Catholic Church in Württemberg.=--Even after
the founding of the bishopric of Rottenberg [Rottenburg] the
government maintained strictly the previously exercised rights of
sovereignty over the Catholic church, to which almost one-third
of the population belonged, and the almost universally prevalent
liberalism of the Catholic clergy found in this scarcely any
offence. A new order of divine service in 1837, which, with the
approval of the episcopal council, recommended the introduction
of German hymns in the services, dispensing the sacraments in
the German language, restriction of the festivals, masses, and
private masses, processions, etc., did indeed cause riots in
several places, in which, however, the clergy took no part. But
when in 1837, in consequence of the excitement caused throughout
Catholic Germany by the Cologne conflict (§ 193, 1), the hitherto
only isolated cases of lawless refusal to consecrate mixed
marriages had increased, the government proceeded severely to
punish offending clergymen, and transported to a village curacy
a Tübingen professor, Mack, who had declared the compulsory
celebration unlawful. Called to account by the nuncio of Munich
for his indolence in all these affairs and severely threatened,
old Bishop Keller at last resolved, in 1841, to lay before
the chamber a formal complaint against the injury done to the
Catholic church, and to demand the freeing of the church from
the sovereignty of the state. In the second chamber this motion
was simply laid _ad acta_, but in the first it was recommended
that the king should consider it. The bishop, however, and the
liberal chapter could not agree as to the terms of the demand,
contradictory opinions were expressed, and things remained
as they were. But Bishop Keller fell into melancholy and died
in 1845. His successor took his stand upon the memorial and
declaration of the Upper Rhenish bishops, and immediately in 1853
began the conflict by forbidding his clergy, under threats of
severe censure, to submit as law required to civil examinations.
The government that had hitherto so firmly maintained its
sovereign rights, under pressure of the influence which a lady
very nearly related to the king exercised over him, gave in
without more ado, quieted the bishop first of all by a convention
in 1854, and then entered into negotiations with the Roman curia,
out of which came in 1857 a concordat proclaimed by the bull
_Cum in sublimi_, which, in surrender of a sovereign right of
the state over the affairs of the church, far exceeds that of
Austria (§ 198, 2). The government left unheeded all protests and
petitions from the chambers for its abolition. But the example
of Baden and the more and more decided tone of the opposition
obliged the government at last to yield. The second chamber
in 1861 decreed the abrogation of the concordat, and a royal
rescript declared it abolished. In the beginning of 1862 a bill
was submitted by the new ministry and passed into law by both
chambers for determining the relations of the Catholic church to
the state. The royal _placet_ or right of permitting or refusing,
is required for all clerical enactments which are not purely
inter-ecclesiastical but refer to mixed matters; the theological
endowments are subject to state control and joint administration;
boys’ seminaries are not allowed; clergymen appointed to office
must submit to state examination; according to consuetudinary
rights, about two-thirds of the benefices are filled by the
king, one-third by the bishops on reporting to the civil court,
which has the right of protest; clergy who break the law are
removable by the civil court, etc. The curia indeed lodged
a protest, but the for the most part peace-loving clergy reared,
not in the narrowing atmosphere of the seminaries but amid
the scientific culture of the university, in the halls of
Tübingen, submitted all the more easily as they found that in
all inter-ecclesiastical matters they had greater freedom and
independence under the concordat than before.

§ 196.7. =The Imperial Territory of Alsace and Lorraine
since 1871.=--After Alsace with German Lorraine had again, in
consequence of the Franco-Prussian war, been united to Germany
and as an imperial territory had been placed under the rule
of the new German emperor, the secretary of the Papal States,
Cardinal Antonelli, in the confident hope of being able to secure
in return the far more favourable conditions, rights and claims
of the Catholic church in Prussia with the autocracy of the
bishops unrestricted by the state, declared in a letter to the
Bishop of Strassburg, that the concordat of 1801 (§ 203, 1) was
annulled. But when the imperial government showed itself ready
to accept the renunciation, and to make profit out of it in the
opposite way from that intended, the cardinal hasted in another
letter to explain how by the incorporation with Germany a new
arrangement had become necessary, but that clearly the old must
remain in force until the new one has been promulgated. Also a
petition of the Catholic clergy brought to Berlin by the bishop
himself, which laid claim to this unlimited dominion over all
Catholic educational and benevolent institutions, failed of
its purpose. The clergy therefore wrought for this all the
more zealously by fanaticizing the Catholic people in favour of
French and against German interests. On the epidemic about the
appearance of the mother of God called forth in this way, see
§ 188, 7. In 1874 the government found itself obliged to close
the so-called “little seminaries,” or boys’ colleges, on account
of their fostering sentiments hostile to the empire. Yet in
1880 the newly appointed imperial governor, Field-marshal von
Manteuffel (died 1885), at the request of the States-Committee,
allowed Bishop Räss of Strassburg to reopen the seminary at
Zillisheim, with the proviso that his teachers should be approved
by the government, and that instruction in the German language
should be introduced. Manteuffel has endeavoured since, by
yielding favours to the France-loving Alsatians and Lorrainers,
and to their ultramontane clergy, to win them over to the idea of
the German empire, even to the evident sacrifice of the interests
of resident Germans and of the Protestant church. But such
fondling has wrought the very opposite result to that intended.

§ 197. THE SO-CALLED KULTURKAMPF IN THE GERMAN EMPIRE.[550]

Ultramontanism had for the time being granted to the Prussian state, which had not only allowed it absolutely free scope but readily aided its growth throughout the realm (§ 193, 2), an indulgence for that offence which is in itself unatoneable, having a Protestant dynasty. Pius IX. had himself repeatedly expressed his satisfaction at the conduct of the government. But the league which Prussia made in 1866 with the “church-robbing Sub-alpine,” _i.e._ Italian, government, was not at all to the taste of the curia. The day of Sadowa, 3rd July, 1866, called from Antonelli the mournful cry, _Il mondo cessa_, “The world has gone to ruin,” and the still more glorious day of Sedan, 2nd September, 1870, completely put the bottom out of the Danaid’s vessel of ultramontane forbearance and endurance. This day, 18th January, 1871, had as its result the overthrow of the temporal power of the papacy as well the establishment of a new and hereditary German empire under the Protestant dynasty of the Prussian Hohenzollerns. German ultramontanism felt itself all the more under obligation to demand from the new emperor as the first expiation for such uncanonical usurpation, the reinstatement of the pope in his lost temporal power. But when he did not respond to this demand, the ultramontane party, by means of the press favourable to its claims, formally declared war against the German empire and its governments, and applied itself systematically to the mobilization of its entire forces. But the empire and its governments, with Prussia in the van, with unceasing determination, supported by the majority of the States’ representatives, during the years 1871-1875 proceeded against the ultramontanes by legislative measures. The execution of these by the police and the courts of law, owing to the stubborn refusal to obey on the part of the higher and lower clergy, led to the formation of an opposition, commonly designated after a phrase of the Prussian deputy, Professor Virchow, “_Kulturkampf_,” which was in some degree modified first in 1887. The imperial chancellor, Prince Bismarck, uttered at the outset the confident, self-assertive statement, “We go not to Canossa,”--and even in 1880, when it seemed as if a certain measure of submission was coming from the side of the papacy, and the Prussian government also showed itself prepared to make important concessions, he declared, “We shall not buy peace with Canossa medals; such are not minted in Germany.” Since 1880, however, the Prussian government with increasing compliance from year to year set aside and modified the most oppressive enactments of the May laws, so as actually to redress distresses and inconveniences occasioned by clerical opposition to these laws, without being able thereby to obtain any important concession on the part of the papal curia, until at last in 1887, after the government had carried concession to the utmost limit, the pope put his seal to definitive terms of peace by admitting the right of giving information on the part of the bishops regarding appointments to vacant pastorates, as well as the right of protest on the part of the government against those thus nominated.