Search

[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 …

[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 …