LCMS Commission on Constitutional Matters — Minutes St. Louis, Missouri — August 17–18, 2018, Page 4

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sum of the congregations served by a given pastor are to be considered a unit when it comes to the matter
of voting representation at conventions. Thus, from the beginning of the history of the Synod a
congregation-or-parish, although the term itself was not used until 1924—when the Constitution was,
culminating a thorough reorganization in German, translated officially into English—is the total of the
congregations served by one pastor.
This definition has more recently been applied to groups of congregations served by the same two or more
pastors (CCM Op. 02-2321, 09-2545, 11-2617), and to congregations which may not all have called the
same pastor(s), but are all served by him/them (1972 Ag. 305; 1978 Ag. 1275A, B; Op. 11-2618, 14-2718).
These applications, however, do not appear to have been contemplated before the modern era.
Question 3:

Does the manner in which an amendment occurred, (e.g., unintended elision or adoption
by the Synod in convention) permit the commission to amend the text of the Constitution
or Bylaws in a manner that causes its text to differ substantially from the text that has been
delivered to the members of the Synod?

Opinion: The commission was unsure of the precise intent of the question. The Commission on Handbook
is charged with the maintenance and management of the Handbook, consisting of the Constitution, Bylaws,
and Articles of Incorporation of the Synod (Bylaw 3.9.4). In carrying out this work it revises the Handbook
following every convention. At times, it may, in consultation with the Commission on Constitutional
Matters, make a non-substantive change in the bylaws for the sake of clarity of a particular bylaw or to
correct errors made in the publication process.
It is not the business of the Commission on Constitutional Matters to amend the text of the Bylaws, although
it may, in a case where the Constitution or other Bylaws render certain language unconstitutional or
inapplicable, have to indicate that such language is inoperative until it can be corrected by a convention. In
this specific instance, the question seems to be whether the commission was correct, in its 2009 and prior
opinions on this matter, to apply the previous definition of parish, even though the explicit statement of this
definition had been removed from the bylaws in 1981.
Where a definition has been removed from the bylaws by a convention, the circumstances of its removal
are important in determining the significance, if any, of the removal to the meaning of the defined term(s).
In 1981, the definition appears to have been removed as part of a sweeping revision of bylaws, only part of
which was adopted. In reviewing the related material, the commission was unable to discern any sense that
the convention intended to rescind the definition, the explicit statement of which it was removing from the
bylaws, or to detect any sense of a new intended definition with which it might be replaced. As noted in the
various opinions since, the Synod continued to operate, between 1981 and present, on the previously
explicit definition of parish as the commonly understood definition.
Furthermore, here, the question is one of constitutional interpretation: What does congregation-or-parish
mean in Const. Art. V? How the convention changed the bylaws in 1981—unless it acted thereby to interpret
the Constitution, explicitly and with substantive rationale, which it did not—has no bearing on what the
constitutional term has meant since 1924, or on what its predecessor term Pfarrgemeinde has meant since
1847. In 2009, and again in 2014, the commission applied the definition that had consistently been applied
to that point (see Op. 14-2718, June 13–14, 2014; Op. 11-2618, Nov. 11–13, 2011; Op. 09-2545, Feb. 7–8,
2009; Op. 03-2327 and 02-2321, Jan. 20–21, 2003; Ag. 1748, May 3–4, 1985; Ag. 1734, Feb. 1, 1985); Ag.
1275A, B, June 9, 1978; Ag. 305, May 4–5, 1972; Ag. 181, Oct 1–2, 1970). It cited this definition from its
previously explicit statement in the bylaws. In doing so it did not amend the bylaws or “resurrect” a dead
bylaw, and certainly did not go beyond its authority (Bylaw 3.9.2.2 [c]). It simply applied the historically
demonstrable, settled interpretation of Const. Art. V.
Question 4:

Does the call of a pastor of a dual-parish as an associate pastor of a local larger
congregation, where the pastor of the larger congregation has no call to and no

CCM Minutes – August 17–18, 2018 – Page 125