# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_M rz 1862_S84
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

84    The United Bavarian General Synod.

Christian way that a synod ought to take in such affairs. The Buffalo way is an unchristian, unseemly way of Judaism. —

May God convert the Buffaloers, that they perish not in their errant ways! —

——

(Contributed.)
The United Bavarian General Synod.

Under this heading there appears in the "Allgemeine Kirchen-Zeitung" a series of communications from which we believe we must, certainly in the interest of many readers, extract the following: The synod for the two consistorial districts of the Lutheran Church of Bavaria, for the districts of Ansbach and Bayreuth, was this time a united General Synod. It was held at Ansbach in the royal palace and lasted from November 24 of the previous year to December 8 inclusive. Present were: besides a royal commissioner, the presiding officer, 5 consistorial commissioners, and the deputy of the theological faculty at Erlangen, a further 136 deputies from the 64 deanery districts, namely 64 preachers and just as many laymen. As royal commissioner there served the appellate court director von Gombart of Neuburg; the presiding officer of the synod was the president of the supreme consistory and privy councillor Dr. von Harleß. Of the former it is reported that he is a decidedly believing man, who in his time did much for the founding of a Lutheran congregation in Neuburg, steadfastly defended its rights against the Abel ministry, and for that reason had much to suffer. From the excellent, stimulating, and heart-winning address of the presiding officer, von Harleß, at the opening of the synod, we take the following notable passage: "The church is, far more than any other community, like a body, whose overall well-being is endangered to the degree that member turns against member, and whose flourishing is secured and increases to the degree that all its members, despite the particularity of their calling, subordinate themselves, in mutual service, to one common service and one common duty under the one Head, who is Christ the Lord. In this sense I welcome also this year's General Synod as one at whose deliberations an increased number of members of the congregations take part. May there vanish with this the last trace of the notion that our concern here is to bring the interests of the clergy and those of the congregations into some true or supposed balance. Were that how matters stood, something would already be rotten among us. For in the church, insofar as it is truly the body of the Lord, there are no estates, classes, callings, or members whose interests stand opposed to one another and whose opposition would first have to be reconciled. Where in truth it is said and holds true: 'One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in all' — there the interest of all can only be this: the unity of the Spirit