# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1857_S341
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The Ecclesiastical Movements in Bavaria.   341

plainants by no means. It was remarked therein that the substantiation of the accusations raised against the Upper Consistory had been regretfully missed; the decision goes at length into the individual points of complaint and demonstrates that they are unfounded. It is in fact a refusal so far as the complainants are concerned. Characteristic is the remark made about it by one of the chief participants, that one must read it repeatedly in order to notice that it is after all not so very unfavorable as it appears at a first reading. And there is something right in this with respect to one point, namely, what is said about the liturgy. One of the points of complaint was the introduction of the liturgy at the chief (Sunday morning) service; its abolition had been demanded. The Most High decision did indeed reject this demand as unfounded and unwarranted, but it ordered an investigation concerning the local introduction of the liturgy, to which its opponents attached, with some right, the hope of its local removal. This then was also the point to which the agitation directed itself, first in Nuremberg and then in other places as well; people did not want to have made so mighty a rush entirely for nothing; and since now nothing was to be hoped for with respect to the remaining points, they threw themselves with all their might upon the liturgy.

This effort was now especially favored by the circumstance that at the beginning of December the renewal or supplementary election of the church boards, which takes place every three years, had to be held. Every three years, that is, half of the church elders must retire, in order to be replaced, together with an equal number of alternates, by a new election. Entitled to vote, according to the Most High Ordinance of October 7, 1850, is every male independent member of the parish district who has completed his twenty-first year and has not been convicted of a crime or offense of forgery, fraud, etc. Eligible for the church board are all enfranchised lay members of the congregation who have completed their twenty-fifth year, lead a moral Christian life, and show their disposition, corresponding to the faith and confession of the church, by participation in public worship and in the holy Supper. Now in Nuremberg there were, for the five parish districts together, thirty church elders and thirty alternates to be elected. This election was used by the opponents of the Upper Consistory to carry through above all the removal of the liturgy, and then still further matters. For the enormous extension of the active franchise offered a favorable opportunity for this. It only came to this, that as large a number as possible of voters who otherwise trouble themselves not at all about church, worship, the Supper, etc., should be induced to take part in the act of election, and then one was certain of obtaining a large majority over those of church-minded disposition. To achieve this, attention was called on December 3 in the public papers to the coming election, and people were summoned