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[German Version] I. History This institution, founded in 1948 (a German Federal Church with eight member churches) has a prehistory rooted in the 19th century which presupposes the confessional division of German Protestantism from 1529 to 1648. It is based on the axiom that, according to ¶ CA 7, all churches that follow the Lutheran confessional documents form a single church. This also results in fellowship in the Lutheran World Federation. 1. Because of a lack of precision in the terms “confession” and “Lutheran,” and the persistency of the Landeskirchen model, efforts for union …

[German Version] (accusative of commenda, “trust”, from Lat. commendare, “to give in trust”), a legal institution of classical canon law that permitted a church official to enjoy the income from an ecclesiastical office without having to fulfill the obligations and duties of a regular benefice. In principle, a benefice could be given in commendam only as long as it took to fill the vacancy or while the regular incumbent was prevented from carrying out his duties, for example as a result of suspension; cf. also Decretum Gratiani, cc. 3, 21, q. 1 ( Corpus Iuris Canonici …