# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1860_S380
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

380 Preliminary Report on the General Synod of the Prussian Lutheran Church.

would be of less importance to the readers of the Pilger, and we therefore pass over them here; the report on the treasury's affairs presented much distress, but also wonderful help from the Lord; the marriage case never came up for deliberation; the Diedrich matter will be carried further by way of brotherly admonition and investigation; and there remains for us, therefore, chiefly still the report on one negotiation which will be of quite special interest to our Saxon brethren: it concerns our relationship to the Lutheran Mission Institute in Leipzig. Everyone knows that this relationship had, in the last two years, become a troubled one and threatened to break off entirely, on account of differing views on the question of altar fellowship. Students from the Prussian Lutheran Church had not been unconditionally permitted to seek the Holy Sacrament outside Leipzig from a pastor of their own church, after they had declared that receiving it from the first pastor of the New Church in Leipzig burdened their conscience, because he did not insist on unmixed communion fellowship. — Once more an attempt at the most heartfelt reunion was to be made, for through the whole synod there pressed the wish of the heart: to remain with Leipzig if at all possible. Upon an invitation extended, two delegates of the Mission College in Leipzig had appeared at the synod, namely Professor Luthardt and Mission Director Hardeland. For four days we negotiated with them, and soon we could no longer doubt that the renewed connection would succeed, for the Leipzig watchword proved similar to our own: to remain with Breslau if at all possible. Thus, on October 4th, the following agreement was happily reached, with unanimity of votes. In that the synod thanks the Supreme Church Council for safeguarding the interests of our church in this controversy and fully approves the principles expressed by it in doing so, it also joins the Council in holding that the declaration of the General Assembly communicated in the letter of the Mission College in Leipzig of July 7th of last year, as it stands, is not a sufficient concession to the demand made on our side.

Since, however, from the representatives of the Mission College — who, in the mutual desire for a peaceful and God-pleasing settlement of the dispute that had arisen, were present at the synod — sufficiently satisfying explanations have on the whole been given concerning the actual meaning of the passage of the so-called concession objected to in the letter of the Supreme Church Council of November 3rd, 1859; since they have also declared, as the view of the Mission College, that no student shall ever be compelled to receive communion from a clergyman he finds objectionable; and since, further, so far as our demand concerns objections to clergymen who, on principle, knowingly and publicly, promiscue — that is, simply and generally — admit the Unionist or Reformed to the Lord's Supper, we have been assured by those representatives, for their own persons and with the consent of the Mission College held out in prospect, that the Mission College itself would participate