# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1861_S313
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

Regulation for Evangelical Church Building. 313.

was the case, and also that no actual circumstances were adduced by the mover of the motion himself that would justify the motion in question as corresponding to an existing need, while at the same time it was acknowledged that the church government would in any case be authorized, should such a case arise, to reach a resolution appropriate to the circumstances." The Hertel motion was therefore rejected, and the resolution to let the petition rest was adhered to.

It is unlikely that any reconciliation proceedings that may yet occur will change anything in this resolution. It will be best to consign the petition to oblivion: we have no reason to be angry with the petitioners over this, if only because they have given our esteemed church government occasion to bring an issue — in itself clear enough, but often thrown into confusion by the ecclesiastical confusion of our time — properly into the clear before the forum of the Chamber.

(From the Saxon Church and School Gazette.)

Regulation for Evangelical Church Building.*)

(By resolution of the Eisenach Conference of June 5, 1861.)

1. Every church should, according to old custom, be oriented, that is, so laid out that its chancel lies toward the sunrise.

2. The ground plan best suited to evangelical worship is an elongated rectangle. The exterior height, including the main cornice, should in single-nave churches amount to approximately three-quarters of the width, while it is all the more in keeping with the considerations that must be given to acoustic need, the less the length exceeds the measure of its breadth.

A projection to the east for the chancel (apse, gallery, choir), and on the eastern part of the long sides for a north and a south transept, gives the building the significant form of the cross.

Of central-plan buildings without cross-arm projections, the octagon is acoustically admissible; the rotunda is to be rejected as not acoustically suitable.

3. The dignity of Christian church building calls for attachment to one of the historically developed Christian building styles, and recommends, within the ground plan of the elongated rectangle, alongside the Old Christian basilica and the so-called Romanesque (pre-Gothic) manner of building, preferably the so-called Germanic (Gothic) style.

*) This regulation, communicated to the editors by a special kindness, meets an urgent need, and nothing more is to be wished than that it also be sent to all church authorities among us, with instructions to have regard to it in new buildings and, respectively, in repairs. In the meantime we bring it to the knowledge of our dear brethren in office, with the cordial request that they study themselves into it, since the principles set forth here contain the results of thorough studies; and with the offer, on doubtful points, to give further information as far as lies in our power. (Church and School Gazette.)