Relations entre Église et État dans la République Démocratique Allemande : principes théoriques et applications pratiques

Abstract

By founding their own church federation in 1969, the GDR leaders, whose ideology was supposed to be marxism, enforced the division of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKB). Ever since then, the protestants in the GDR had to define the working ground and fields of activity for the new confederation of evangelical churches (BEK) in the GDR and at the same time its place in and towards the explicitly atheistical state. The GDR's leadership of state and party-demanding the monopoly in the interpretation and creation of the social reality-had to face the existence of the protestant church as an alien element, which actually was not supposed to exist at all. An outline of the most important events and turning points in the relationship between state and church in the GDR and between the two German states shows in which way the political realities and the antagonistic ideologies came into practice. How the two churches handled the restrictions and limitations forced upon them finally depended on their own force. Regarding the GDR, the BEK did not choose a clear-cut stand in the Dictatorship of consensus (Konsensdiktatur), but decided in each case, thus oscillating between adaptation and refusal, between cooperation and confrontation with the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) system.