# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1848_S46
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 46 —

...could not care better for that institution than by earnestly requesting both
Pastor Dr. Sihler and Pastor A. Wolter to remain in their present positions
and work at the seminary; it therefore asked both of them to give their
consenting declaration still during this year's sessions — which was in fact
given later.

The Präses [president] was instructed by the synod to answer the letter of
the Reverend Löhe, in which he transfers the Fort Wayne institute to the
synod, and to express the synod's thanks for this gift.

The statutes drawn up by the 3rd Committee for the seminary were now
presented to the synod and, after some amendments and additions, adopted
in the following form.

Statutes for the German Ev.-Lutheran Seminary for Preachers at Fort
Wayne, Ind.

§ 1. The German Ev.-Luth. Seminary for Preachers at Fort Wayne, Ind.,
founded in the fall of 1846 by the Reverend Pastor Löhe of Neudettelsau in
Franconia together with the Reverend Pastor Wucherer of Nördlingen in
Bavaria, has, according to a deed of gift dated 8 September 1847, been
transferred to the German Ev.-Luth. Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and other
states as sole property, in the best legal form, under the following
conditions:

1. that it serve the Lutheran Church forever and train only her preachers
and pastors;

2. that German be adopted as the sole medium of instruction in the
seminary and remain so inviolably;

3. that the seminary remain what it is, namely an institution whose purpose
is to make possible as thorough as possible, yet also as speedy as possible,
an equipping of preachers and pastors for the countless abandoned German
fellow believers and for newly immigrating congregations of our stock and
confession. It shall not be a theological institution in the ordinary German
sense, but a nursery of preachers and pastors whose course of study is
itself a strict preparation for the holy ministry.

§ 2. The seminary for preachers shall also, according to the founders'
wish, serve as occasion requires for the training of missionaries among the
heathen natives of North America.

§ 3. The synod shall appoint from its midst a board of oversight, consisting
of the members of the examining committee, unless one or more of them
belong to the teaching staff. In the latter case it shall complete the board
with other academically trained preachers of its body by regular election.
As a fourth member of the board of oversight, the synod shall choose a
suitable person from among the seminary's hearers, where possible from
the members of the German Ev.-Lutheran St. Paul's congregation at Fort
Wayne.

§ 4. The synod shall elect three trustees from the congregations of its
district, choosing where possible ones who live in or around Fort Wayne.

§ 5. The board of oversight shall have oversight of the following:

1. Whether the doctrine taught in the seminary agrees with the Word of
God according to the understanding of the symbolical books [confessional
writings] of our church;

2. whether the teachers faithfully discharge their office and adorn it by a
godly walk of life;