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[German Version] (Mar 5, 1867, Greifswald – Sep 18, 1949, Stade), Protestant clergyman, son of Otto Zöckler; missionary to the Jews from 1891 and vicar in Stanislau (Galicia; now Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine), where he established a children’s home in 1896 and a German school in 1898; in 1900 he was appointed pastor in Stanislau and Ugartshal. In 1908 he founded the Paulinum, a theological and diaconal seminary. The “Stanislau institutions,” combined with the deaconesses’ mother house Sarepta in 1913,…

[German Version] The Midnight Mission is a Christian organization doing diaconal and pastoral ¶ work with prostitutes (Prostitution) to address problems of human trafficking, violations of human rights, victim protection, support for offenders, and drug dependence. It goes back to the English social reformer J.E. Butler, who coined the phrase “midnight mission” and founded English and international relief organizations to aid prostitutes (1875/1877). The 19th-century Sittlichkeitsvereine (“morality leagues”) in Germany were among its precursors. The first Ger…

[German Version] Since the middle of the 19th century, deaconess institutes/(mother)houses and deacon institutes/brotherhouses have influenced the professional work and image of the Protestant diakonia or inland mission. Deaconess houses and brotherhouses are centers of diakonia even today. T. and F. Fliedner chose the term deaconess institute (synonym: deaconess house) for the institution they ¶ founded in Kaiserswerth in 1836, which prevailed over others (Düsselthal Deaconess Foundation founded by A. v. der …

[German Version] Kaiserswerth, now part of the city of Düsseldorf, is well known in church and diaconal circles for the oldest deaconess institute there, which was founded in 1836 by T. and F. Fliedner (Diakonia center). This cradle of the “female diakonia” became the world center for motherhouses and associations on the Fliedner model. Today's “Kaiserswerther Diakonie” in Düs-¶ seldorf with a total of 2,136 workers (as of October 1999) includes the motherhouse and its retirement homes with 175 deaconesses (166 of them retired), 112 diaconal sisters and…

[German Version] The designation community work is employed in widely divergent meanings. Generally speaking, community work (Ger. Gemeinwesenarbeit) is “a concept of action requiring closer definition, designed to counteract the dangers that appear in the individual systems of scientific/technological civilization” (Strohm 196). Community work (also called community action, community development etc.) refers to the “third method” of social work alongside social case work and s…

[German Version] The term provision or provide is used with a broad spectrum of meanings in social policy and social legislation, in both the secular world and in church law. But we also speak of infrastructure that provides water, electricity, and gas, as well as providing social services, such a health care or psychotherapy. The use of providing in social legislation distinguishes it as one of three fundamental principles in the realm of social security, along with insurance and welfare. The notion of a “provision” indicates a legal entitlement to u…

[German Version] Help for the unpropertied classes is one of the specialized areas of German social work that developed from classical assistance for people at risk. It is scarcely possible to draw a line between it and homeless assistance; the distinction is due to historical and legal factors. In the context of industrialization in 19th-century Germany and its social consequences (Social question), labor migration and homelessness, the labor colony of F. v. Bodelschwingh (the Elder) in Wilhelmsd…

[German Version] 1. Friedrich Christoph. (Apr 21, 1772, Rudolstadt, Thuringia – May 18, 1843, Gotha), bookseller and publisher. After an apprenticeship in Leipzig, in 1796 Perthes opened in Hamburg the first retail bookstore in Germany not connected with a publisher (Printing and publishing: I, 3). In 1821 he moved to Gotha, where he specialized in publishing academic works in history and theology. In 1825 he played a leading role in establishing the Börsenverein der Deutschen Buchhändler (German Pub…

[German Version] Love gifts have been given since earliest Christian times as donations, collections, bequests, and contributions for Christian welfare within and beyond the congregation and for the leaders or the employees of the congregation. In contrast to fixed levies such as the tithe (Tithing), contributions, or taxes, love gifts are understood to be voluntary and supplementary. Essentially, two types of love gift can be differentiated. 1. Well into the 20th century, not only pastors, but also sextons, clerks, deacons, and others, received gifts of money…

[German Version] The care of orphans as an important area of Jewish and Christian social responsibility goes back to Moses and the social legislation of the Bible (Exod 22:21–23; Deut 24:17). Historically, it was the germ that grew into services for children and young people (Youth service) and social education. Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire already had to deal with the danger of numbers of pauperized orphans (Heb. יָתוֹם/ yātôm, Gk ὀρϕανός/ orphanós, Lat. orbus). To meet this challenge, they established a system of legal guardianship, supplemented by food relief…

[German Version] (Sep 22, 1855, Gardelegen – Dec 5, 1919, Gießen), Protestant theologian, journalist, and hymnodist. After receiving his doctorate from Halle, he served as a private tutor in Cologne. In 1880 he received his Lic.theol. from Bonn and was appointed as lecturer in New Testament. In 1883 he became a pastor in Mahnsfeld, East Prussia (now Polewoje, Kaliningrad Oblast). In 1884 he was appointed associate professor in Königsberg (Kaliningrad) and junior pastor of ¶ the motherhouse for deaconesses there. In 1890 he became director of the seminary in Herborn. In…

[German Version] Welfare Center, also called a diakonia center in German Protestant usage, is a central institution providing outpatient care for the elderly, the sick, and families (Sick, Care of the). The idea and the term (Ger. Sozialstation) emerged in 1968 from the ministry of social affairs in Rhineland-Palatinate, in the midst of restructuring outpatient care. In the 1970s, such centers spread throughout the Federal Republic of Germany. They were preceded by communal care and social work carried out by community nurses, Prot…