# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Februar 1863_S48
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

48 Toward the History of the Hanoverian Catechism Controversy.

in this distress, to do everything legally possible for the sole honor of the Lord of the Church and for the welfare of the evangelical congregation, the Pastoral Conference assembled today at Celle declares the following:

1. We stand with holy Scripture and the confessional writings of the evangelical Church on the one foundation that is laid, and besides which no other can be laid, which is Christ.

2. We hold fast to Luther's Small Catechism, but consider that, after the issuance of the decree of the 19th of August of this year — which we have received with thanks — no Lutheran clergyman or schoolteacher, in whose congregation the old Hanoverian territorial catechism has been introduced by law or by custom, is authorized, against the wishes of his church or school congregation, to base his religious instruction on a different catechism.

3. We wish, and intend, in union with our congregations, to strive that the same may obtain a congregational order, presbyterial in character and corresponding to the nature of the evangelical Church, and, within it, a more influential participation in the election and calling of their clergy and teachers.

4. We wish, and intend, in union with our congregations, to strive for our evangelical territorial Church to obtain a synodal constitution in which, alongside the clergy, the laity too may find adequate and appropriate representation.

5. For bringing about this presbyterial and synodal constitution, we hold the prompt convening of an extraordinary synod — already promised in § 23 of the territorial constitutional law, and to consist of clerical and lay members — to be indispensably necessary, and we intend to take every legally permissible step so that His Majesty, as protector of the Church, may, through the competent authority, convene such a synod and, together with it, order the constitution of the Church.

For the furtherance of the purposes stated above, and in particular for the preparation, convening, and conduct of a public assembly of such clergy and laity as agree with the program of the Pastoral Conference, we have elected a committee, which is left free to strengthen itself by co-optation and to determine the time and place of the assembly.

Celle, October 7, 1862.

On behalf of the Pastoral Conference, the elected editorial commission: Dr. F. G. Rettig, General Superintendent, Chairman; Busse, Superintendent; Diestelmann, town preacher; Greiling, Archdeacon; Sulze, Pastor, Secretary."

On this Dr. Münkel remarks, among other things, as follows: "These are the resolutions of Celle; let us now examine the matter a little more closely.

Here, then, there were assembled in the first place ten superintendents, namely Rettig of Göttingen, elected president by acclamation;