# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1852_S215
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 215 —

...contracts and the like without the consent of the general Synod.

5. The present constitution forms the basis and norm both for the
constitution of the general Synod and for those of the individual
district synods.

6. The *Präses* of the general Synod does not, to be sure, hold the
office of a general visitor; yet every member of the Synod is entitled
to request his mediation, or respectively his appearance, on the spot,
and such a requested intervention by the general *Präses* must
therefore not be regarded by the district *Präses* as an encroachment
on another's office. The *Präses* of the general Synod shall be chosen
from among the 4 district *Präsides*.
Addendum. The *Präses* of the general Synod shall not be called upon to
investigate a matter within a district synod until the other channels
have been exhausted. The general *Präses* has the duty and the right to
intervene, wherever a district *Präses* himself, or a preacher of a
district, falls into false doctrine or practice, as often as his general
position and responsibility toward the Synod makes such direct
intervention necessary. Yet the general *Präses* shall each time first
notify the district *Präses* of this, and shall never intervene by
passing over him.

The election of both the district *Präsides* and the general *Präses*
shall take place only at the general Synod, so that absent preachers and
congregations too shall send their ballots to the relevant district
secretary, and the general *Präses* shall be elected only by synod
members present, from among the 4 elected district *Präsides*.

7. The general Synod shall hold a convention every three years; the
district synods every year, though each at a different time. In the
third year the district synods' conventions are omitted. During the
session of the general Synod, the members of the district synods, or a
committee of the same, shall assemble to attend to their current
business for that year.

8. Every district synod — so, where possible, the eastern one as well —
shall send a delegate to the other district synods' conventions. In
sending delegates, expense shall not be spared.

9. The treasurer of each district synod, after covering the expenses of
his district synod, shall deliver any surplus to the treasury of the
general Synod, from which all expenses of the general Synod — e.g. for
the upkeep of the schools, printing costs, and so forth — are to be
met.

Note. Mr. Barthel, together with another synod member, will draw up a
plan in this regard and present it for review at the next synodical
convention.

After these paragraphs had been discussed, the question was taken up
once more: "whether such a division of the Synod into district synods —
on the basis of the proposals concerned, provided the congregations
consent — should take place now?" The question was answered in the
negative by Pastors Röbbelen and Holls; Professor Crämer abstained from
voting; and all the rest, pastors and congregational deputies alike,
answered the question with a Yes!

The Synod resolved to communicate here its reasons for the intended
division. They are as follows: