# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1906_S81
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Constitution and Agreements of the Synodical Conference. 81

whole body and of individual parts of it to church bodies outside its federation; matters of foreign and home [mission] as well as emigrant mission; hospital and orphanage work; Lutheran literature in general and the Lutheran tract system in particular; the matter of the training of preachers and schoolteachers, and the like.

§ VI. Manner of Execution.

a. The members of the Synodical Conference [*Synodalkonferenz*]: they are partly voting, partly merely advisory; the former are the preachers and congregational deputies delegated for this purpose by the synods concerned, the latter all those present who are either standing members of the synods concerned or who at least served as congregational deputies in the synodical assemblies held immediately before. For the time being each synod concerned that numbers eighty or under eighty voting members is entitled to elect four representatives; each forty voting members above eighty confer the right to elect two further representatives; likewise every fraction of forty, but always preachers and deputies in equal number.

b. Time of meeting: every year in July. Later change: every two years. (S.-C. VIII, 46.)

c. Officers of the body: One chairman, elected for one year,¹) from among the theologians, and a secretary, as well as a treasurer, and one substitute for each.

d. Length of session: at most six days.

§ VII. Constitution.

The constitution of the Synodical Conference takes effect after it has been confirmed by all the synods concerned by concurring resolution; changes of the constitution too can gain validity and force only by such a resolution; the Synodical Conference has power to add to its statutes such subsidiary provisions as neither contradict the constitutions of the synods concerned nor draw matters of synodical competence into its own circle. (The "Denkschrift" [memorial] of the synods uniting into the Synodical Conference, p. 5 ff., and A. XV, 90 ff.)

Explanation of § 2 of the foregoing Constitution.

It is wrong that a congregation should be received into the federation of a synod that belongs to the Synodical Conference which does not want to bear the name of an Evangelical Lutheran congregation, even though it otherwise has the Lutheran doctrine. (S.-C. V, 11.)

Explanations of § 4.

Of "decisive authority" in matters of doctrine and conscience there can of course be no question. — In all other matters each individual synod is sufficiently secured by the fact that it can refuse its consent to the conferring of such authority.

An "ecclesiastical-legal tie" has been formed where one synod has given the other the right to take part in decisions on matters of constitution or administration. (S.-C. I, 74.)

1) Since the Synodical Conference has met only every two years since 1879 (S.-C. VIII, 46), the officers too are elected for two years.