# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1874_S5
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 5 —

As guests there attended the sessions

not only, now more, now fewer, members of the dear congregations at Pittsburgh, but there had also appeared from other synods: Dr. J. Ruperti of New York, Pastor J. Kündig of Reading, and Pastor H. Wetzel of Virginia.

In all, then, there were present 95 members, namely 52 delegates and 43 advisory members.

After the Synodalconferenz [Synodical Conference] had constituted itself, it proceeded to the election of officers for the current year. The result was as follows:

Prof. W. F. Lehmann . . . . . . President.
Pastor E. A. Brauer . . . . . . Vice-President.
Pastor T. J. Große . . . . . . . Secretary.*)
Mr. J. Eitemüller . . . . . . . Treasurer.

(The treasurer's address is:
No. 1714 Carson Str. S. S. Pittsburgh, Pa.)

Among the matters that lay before the Conference for discussion and resolution, the

Theses on Church Fellowship [Kirchengemeinschaft]

already begun in the previous year were discussed further in two forenoon sessions. Because of the shortness of time only the 5th Thesis could be discussed in detail and was finally adopted unanimously. (For the sake of continuity, the first four, already adopted last year, are printed here as well.)

Preliminary remark on the following Theses.

The word "Kirchengemeinschaft" [church fellowship] is not treated here in the wider sense. For in that sense a certain church fellowship already exists, on the ground of the confession of Holy Scripture as the Word of God, among all congregations standing in this confession, as against the heathen, Jews and Mohammedans.

Rather, this word is taken here in the narrower sense, as the fellowship of the Evangelical Lutheran congregations as against the more or less corrupted churchly communions that hold false doctrine.

Thesis 1.

The only inward bond of fellowship between the individual Lutheran congregations among many peoples and languages is the true faith, which justifies and saves, in the LORD Jesus Christ, which grasps and holds fast, with and in Him, also His most holy and perfect merit.

*) The Pastors G. Baumann and O. Spehr served as assistant secretaries for the forenoon sessions.