Church (congregation): the local Christian community and parish

The term "church congregation" derives from the very important concept of "congregation" in Protestant ecclesiology, the translation chosen by Martin Luther of the Greek biblical word ἐκκλησία ekklēsía (literally: "the her[aus]riefene [assembly]"). This translation is to be understood as a distinction from the previously common translation "church" in order to avoid confusion or narrowing to the church building. In this context, congregation cannot be restricted to those acting locally, as a kind of "branch of the overarching institution 'church'". With the word church congregation both elements are again clearly represented: Institution, totality, space and community, concretion, place.

Since the Second Vatican Council and its "communio" ecclesiology, the term "parish" has found its way into Roman Catholic usage, also as "parish community".

How church community is understood in the individual denominations and denominations depends on the understanding of church of the group concerned.

Legal status, structure and designation are subject to internal church law, insofar as the state grants the religions a right of self-determination. Accordingly, there are sometimes considerable differences between the Länder and denominations, in Germany even within the individual Protestant regional churches.

Roman Catholic Church

Canon Law

The concept of parish does not originate in Roman Catholic canon law. Influenced by the Protestant concept of parish, it originated in the German state church law of the 19th century and thus flowed into the Concordats. It designates the ecclesiastically constituted local unit. Connected with this is also the establishment of church councils in the 19th century, demanded by the Prussian state, which are elected by the members of the church community. The assets of the parish are entrusted to the parish councils, which still exist today.

Therefore, a distinction must be made between parish (ecclesiastical unit) and parish (state definition):

• According to can. 515 §3 CIC, the parish has "legal personality by operation of law" and is considered within the Church as a public juridical person of canon law.

• The state-church-law status of the Roman Catholic Church as a corporation under public law (Germany) or as a church recognised under public law (Switzerland), whereby the parish has a state-regulated status.

The constitution of the parish is regulated by the bishop in accordance with canon law and may vary from diocese to diocese. On the other hand, the state can also make regulations concerning the parish: in the Canton of Zurich, for example, the popular election of the pastor by the parish was a condition for the recognition of the Roman Catholic Church under public law in 1963.

Pastoral Theology

Since the Second Vatican Council, the term parish, which is common in the Protestant sphere, has come to be used in Roman Catholic usage alongside or in place of the term parish as a designation for a pastoral care unit at the lowest level, also as a parish-community or church-community. Karl Lehmann: "In contrast to a one-sided legal-institutional interpretation of the term parish, [...] the free association of persons rooted in the common faith and professing the Gospel of Jesus Christ is emphasized."

In the course of the renewal of the church after the Council, parish has become a central pastoral-theological guiding concept. The Joint Synod of the dioceses in the Federal Republic of Germany expressed in the term "parish" that the strongly institutional-legalistic view of parish had to be extended and corrected by the aspect of the more eventful and the idea of the people of God, which was coined by the Council. The Synod saw the level of the parish as having a close affinity to the social "area of interdependence", in which the population can meet its everyday needs in social, cultural and economic respects.

Criticism of the concept of congregation and the turning away from the concept of parish has been voiced in more recent times. The pastoral theologian Herbert Haslinger criticizes the self-centredness of the parish. Often only those people are in view who are currently gathered, but not those who belong to the church beyond that. The concept of the (territorial) parish makes this clearer.

The term parish can be applied to any gathering community of Christians, for example, base communities, small Christian communities, religious congregations or other groups. Within a parish there can be several congregations as a "social neighbourhood" which can set subsidiary pastoral emphases for particular groups of people and local congregations. The people gathered for worship are called the worshipping community, so that congregation is also commonly used as a form of address.

Evangelical Regional Churches of the EKD

According to the Rhenish Church Order, the "church congregation [...] is the community of its members, as a rule, in an area determined by custom or deed of establishment." In addition to the typical "area congregation," there is the rare personal congregation, such as the Berlin Cathedral, in which one becomes a member not by belonging to an area but by joining. The purpose of the congregation is to provide fellowship and to ensure a capacity sufficient for its tasks. In this, the congregations stand in the fellowship of their church district and their regional church. "The congregation carries out the mission of the church [...] in its area within the framework of the church order on its own responsibility."

What they have in common is that, according to their self-understanding, there is no qualitative distinction of believers into priests and laity. According to Luther's idea of the "universal priesthood of all the baptized", every member is equally called to participate in the leadership of the congregation. The responsibility of the elected governing bodies also includes the core areas of worship and pastoral care (see e.g. § 20 para. 1 p. 2 of the Basic Order of the Evangelical Regional Church in Baden: "[...] is responsible for ensuring that God's Word is preached purely and loudly, that the sacraments are administered properly in it, and that the ministry of love is carried out") and especially the election of the congregational pastor.

Regional specifics:

• In the Saxon regional church, the parish is referred to as the Kirchgemeinde; this was also the case in the Mecklenburg regional church.

• The parish leadership is called Kirchenvorstand (Bavaria), Gemeindekirchenrat (Anhalt, Berlin-Brandenburg-schlesische Oberlausitz, Oldenburg, Central Germany and formerly also Pomerania), Kirchengemeinderat (Württemberg), Kirchgemeinderat (formerly Mecklenburg) or Presbyterium (Palatinate, Rhineland, Westphalia, Reformed Church).

• The Protestant Church in Baden is a special case. It does not use the term church congregation, but speaks of the parish. Its governing body is the circle of elders. If the parish is legally independent as a public corporation, it is called a church congregation. Its circle of elders is then also the parish council. However, several dependent parishes can also be combined into one church congregation. In this case, the elders' groups send members to the joint parish council.

Seventh-day Adventist Church

The Free Church of Seventh-day Adventists in Germany is a public corporation. It is subdivided into a North German Association and a South German Association, as well as into regional associations (comparable with regional church offices or dioceses).

The local churches are basically called Adventist churches.

As with all evangelicals, the "general priesthood" applies, meaning no hierarchy between pastors and church members.

The leadership is usually called "congregational committee" or "congregational council". This body is newly elected every two years. At the top is the "church leader" or "church elder" (= (one-)blessed church leader).

Evangelical Methodist Church

The Evangelical Methodist Church does not have local congregations in church law, as the church historically originated as a renewal movement within the Anglican church structure. The lowest unit is the district, led by the district conference, which includes clergy and lay representatives of a district. Usually a district comprises one congregation, but it can also consist of several congregations.

Congregationalist denominations

In denominations with a congregationalist understanding of the church, for example the Baptists, Mennonites or Pentecostal congregations, the local congregation is the actual church, which is legally and theologically largely or completely autonomous - superordinate structures serve only to coordinate or carry out common tasks of the local churches. For example, the Baptist World Alliance was not founded until 1905 - that is, 300 years after the first Baptist local churches were formed. The Mennonite World Conference did not come into being until 1925 - 400 years after the emergence of the first Anabaptist congregations.

The legal status of these local congregations, which are in principle autonomous, is quite different - even within the same Congregationalist federations of congregations.

• Most local communities are registered and recognized as non-profit associations. Here, as a rule, all members of the congregation are also members of the association. The leadership of the congregation is also the board of the association.
• In other cases (for example, often in Brethren congregations) there are so-called sponsoring associations, which are responsible for asset and property management. Community membership and association membership are not identical here.
• Older municipalities, whose formation dates back to before the foundation of the respective federation of municipalities, are recognised here and there as corporations under public law. In very rare cases, they still receive their own corporate rights upon application. An example of this is the Baptist congregation of Hesel-Firrel, which belongs to the Federation of Evangelical Free Churches and did not receive its corporate rights until 2005.
• Some local congregations do not have their own legal status, but participate in the public corporation rights granted by the state to their regional or national association.
• Incidentally, all the local congregations belonging to the supra-local congregations participate in the corporate rights of the local congregations, which in practice sometimes leads to legal difficulties.