Word: reichsbischof
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Meanwhile everything was so wrong that the Protestant bishops in Reichsbischof Ludwig Müller's "Spiritual Cabinet" resigned after a secret conference lasting eight hours and the Reichsbischof's consecration, scheduled for last Sunday, had to be "indefinitely postponed...
Instantly cries of "Sacrilege!" "Infamy!" rang throughout the Evangelical Church. Three influential non-Nazi pastors even demanded a rescinding of the rule against "non-Aryans" in the Church. The sounds of fury and chaos rose to Reichsbischof Ludwig Muller. As the personal friend and henchman of Chancellor Hitler, he might have been expected to side with the Sportpalast "reformers." Instead, caught by the news from Berlin while traveling in southern Germany, he sent a telegram of strong reproof: "I speak only as leader of the Church who is responsible for the preservation of the creed before God. ... It is said...
Scudding north hot behind his telegram, Reichsbischof Muller expelled Heretic Krause from the Church. At once Bishop Hossenfelder expelled the three embattled non-Nazi pastors, who held charges in his diocese, "for offering resistance to the National Socialist and the German Christian spirit." The non-Nazis then called for the expulsion of Bishop Hossenfelder for listening with equanimity to the Sport-palast resolution of heresy. The Sport-palasters retorted that their meeting "was to express what the spiritual leaders of the Church in Germany really think about the Old Testament and to give the highest bishop an understanding...
Though the Synod is Protestant and Adolf Hitler of course is Catholic, Reichsbischof Müller told the churchmen that "Our Chancellor appears to us as a gift from God." Recalling, somewhat left-handedly, Martin Luther's great declaration of the equal freedom and value of all men in the sight of God, Reichsbischof Müller tacked on this Nazi amendment : "Equality before God does not exclude inequality among men, which is also willed by God. For this reason all non-Aryans* must be barred from holding office in the church...
...When Reichsbischof Müller finally sat down ten bishops rose and laid before the Synod a protest signed by 2,000 German pastors. "It is not permissible," they declared "that the Church of Christ betray brotherly love and by the rule of force become a kingdom of this world. . . . Church ministration is in the greatest danger. Pastors and church officials are persecuted. . . . We protest . . . especially to the so-called 'Aryan paragraph...