Remarks on the Organization of the Lutheran Church in East Prussia in the Eighties of the 18th Century

Abstract

The article presented above is concerned with a few aspects of the work of the Lutheran Church in East Prussia. It is first of all based on Ludwik Ernest Borowski's work Neue Preußische Kirchenregistratur, die neuern Verordnungen und Einrichtungen Kirchen- und Schulsachen im Königreiche Preußen enthaltend. Nebst einigen zur kirchengeschichte Preußen gehörigen Aufsätzen. The author also uses earlier sources, like the list of churches of 1720 included in Walter Hubatsch's three-volume work concerned with history of the Lutheran Church in East Prussia and Daniel Arnoldts' presbyterology published in 1777. In the present article the problems are discussed of territorial organization of the Lutheran Church structures in East Prussia. These problems especially include the issue of the number of parish churches and succursal ones in particular Lutheran provinces and inspections, the proportions between the number of parishes and the number of succursals, their localization in towns and in the country. Other questions touched upon in the article are concerned with the kind of the right of patronage over the churches mentioned by Borowski and with the number of clergymen involved in pastoral work in those churches.

The presented studies show that in East Prussia Borowski noted down 334 parishes and 62 succursals. The former ones constituted over 84% of all the Lutheran churches. The percentage of churches localized in towns was 18%. The Prussian king had patronage over nearly 2/3 of all the mentioned churches. The percentage of the churches of noblemen's collation was about 35, and towns' was 2.5. Two country parishes were under the patronage of the Grand Royal Hospital in Königsberg. In the studied period 412 clergymen worked in Lutheran churches in East Prussia. Taking into consideration both parish churches and succursals, there could be one pastor for each church, but on the average more of them worked in town parishes than in country ones.