Kingdom of Hanover - Reorganisation of Religious Bodies in Hanover

Reorganisation of Religious Bodies in Hanover

The Lutheran church was the state church of the Kingdom of Hanover with the King being summus episcopus (Supreme Governor of the Lutheran Church). Regional consistories supervised church and clergy. These were in Aurich, a simultaneously Lutheran and Calvinist consistory dominated by Lutherans (for East Frisia) and the Lutheran consistories in Hanover (for the former Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg proper), in Ilfeld (for the County of Hohenstein, a Hanoverian exclave in the Eastern Harz mountains), in Osnabrück (for the former Prince-Bishopric of Osnabrück), in Otterndorf (existed 1535–1885 for the Land of Hadeln) as well as in Stade (existed 1650–1903, until 1885 for the former Bremen-Verden proper without Hadeln, then including the complete Stade region). A general superintendent chaired each consistory.

In 1848, the Lutheran parishes were democratized by the introduction of presbyteries (German: Kirchenvorstände, singular Kirchenvorstand; literally: church boards), elected by all major male parishioners and chairing each congregation in co-operation with the pastor, being before the sole chairman. This introduction of presbyteries was somewhat revolutionary in the rather hierarchically structured Lutheran church. In 1864, Carl Lichtenberg, Hanoverian minister of education, cultural and religious affairs (1862–65), persuaded the Ständeversammlung (lit. Estates Assembly, the Hanoverian parliament) to pass a new law as to the constitution of the Lutheran church. The constitution provided a state synod (parishioners' parliament, German: Landessynode). But its first session only materialised in 1869 when, after the 1866 Prussian annexation of the Kingdom of Hanover, the Hanoverian Lutherans desired a representative body separate from Prussian rule, though it was restricted to Lutheran matters only.

After the Prussian conquest in 1866, on 19 September 1866, the day before the official Prussian annexation took place and with the last summus episcopus, King George V of Hanover, in exile, the Kingdom's six consistories joined to form today's still-existing church body (Lutheran State Church of Hanover). An all-Hanoverian consistory, the Landeskonsistorium (state consistory), was formed with representatives from the regional consistories.

While the Calvinist congregations in formerly-Prussian East Frisia had a common roof organization with the Lutherans there ("Coetus") and the Reformed Church in the former County of Bentheim, then being the state church, had fully established church bodies for Bentheim only (German: Königlich-Großbrittanisch-Hannoverscher Ober-Kirchenrath, English: Royal British-Hanoverian Supreme Church Council), the Calvinist congregations elsewhere in Hanover were in a somewhat sorry state. Though some Calvinist congregations of Huguenot origin were organized in the Lower Saxon Confederation (German: Niedersächsische Konföderation). The Lutheran church being the state church of Hanover also supervised the Calvinist diaspora parishes outside East Frisia and Bentheim. In 1848 the new Hanoverian law also provided for presbyteries in these Calvinist parishes, which exactly fit the presbyterian structure of Calvinism.

Catholics formed an overall minority in Hanover, but regionally majorities in the former prince-bishoprics. By the annexations in 1803 and 1814 Hanover had become a state of three Christian denominations. In 1824 Hanover and the Holy See thus agreed to integrate diaspora parishes which were located in prevailingly Protestant areas, until then supervised by the Roman Catholic Vicariate Apostolic of the Nordic Missions, into the existing dioceses of the former prince-bishoprics, whose diocesan territories were thus extended into the diaspora areas.

Jews lived all over Hanover in diaspora. Until 1806, they were not allowed to reside in some areas. By the Westphalian and French annexations in 1807 and 1810 all male inhabitants in later restituted Hanover became Westphalian or French citizens of equal rights, though on 17 March 1808 Napoléon Bonaparte restricted the rights of Jews in the French-annexed territory by his so-called décret infâme. The Jewish congregations became subject to the French or Westphalian Jewish Consistory, respectively. When Hanover resumed independence and sovereignty in 1813 its government deprived the Jews their legal equality. Arguing it was the French or Westphalian state and not Hanover, which had emancipated the Jews, the government took the decisions of the German Confederation on the rights of the Jews, in Johann Smidt's manipulated formulation, as the legal grounds.

In 1842, Hanover finally granted equal rights to Jews and promoted to build up Jewish congregations, where this did not already happen earlier, and a superstructure of four regional land-rabbinates. In many diaspora areas Jews regarded this a progress and a burden alike, because of the implied financial burden for rabbins and religion teacher, synagogues or schools. The local authorities now requested that the Jewish congregations establish synagogues and Jewish education for the pupils. The land-rabbins, chairing the land-rabbinates, simultaneously fulfilled religious and state functions, like supervising Jewish elementary schools and the teaching of Jewish religion in all schools. The Kingdom of Hanover was thus one of the few states within the German Confederation, where rabbins held a similar semi-state authoritative position as to Jews as did, e.g., Lutheran clergy towards Lutherans.