# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_November 1857_S343
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The Ecclesiastical Movements in Bavaria.   343

together, on the question whether the liturgy should be suspended in four churches of the city and, on the other hand, retained in its full extent in one church. It was not easy for the friends of the liturgy among the clergy to speak and to vote for this proposal made by the church authority itself, but they nevertheless did the former with self-denial. Yet even the formulation used in the rescript of the Upper Consistory did not please the majority. It was resolved by a majority of votes to put abolition instead of the expression suspension, and finally the question — Shall the liturgy be abolished in all five churches of the city? — was answered in the affirmative by 40 votes against 32.*) Indeed, a good many among the lay church elders were of the opinion that what they had resolved was at once a valid order binding upon the pastors, even without the assent of the church government, and several are said to have been not a little astonished that on the following and the further Sundays the liturgy was still used; and in one church the liturgy that had been introduced was actually set aside before the decision of the church authority. But the Upper Consistory did not consider a minority of 32 against 40, or 4 against 5, in the decision of an ecclesiastical question so insignificant that the majority resolution alone should hold! In fair appreciation of the need making itself known in the 32 votes, it ordered by a resolution of March 9 that the liturgy be suspended in four churches and the order of service restored as it had been in use before the twenty-second Sunday after Trinity of last year, while on the other hand in one church — that of the Holy Ghost, which by its spatial conditions and otherwise had proved especially suitable — the complete liturgy should be retained.

The opponents of the liturgy were indeed not satisfied with this outcome of the matter, and expressed themselves about it in blunt words too; but that was also all, and no further steps were taken by them; indeed the fairer among them themselves acknowledged that the Upper Consistory could not have acted otherwise, and that the friends of the liturgy were to be considered just as much as its opponents. To be sure, with regard to the whole procedure in this matter the question could be raised whether it would not have been better if the Upper Consistory had regarded the duly effected introduction of the liturgy as an accomplished fact and had not admitted the question, liturgy or no liturgy, to deliberation at all. For it cannot after all be denied that a superior church authority cannot be expected to allow arrangements which have been made with the assent of the lawful organs of the congregation to be called in question again forthwith, merely because in the meantime a change has occurred in the persons or a sudden reversal in opinions. But for a corresponding procedure on the part of the Upper Consistory it would above all have been necessary that it should be able to rely upon the

*) Three members, one clergyman and two laymen, were absent. The presiding dean abstained from voting.