Gotthard Fritzsche
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Gotthard Daniel Fritzsche (20 July 1797 – October 26, 1863) was one of the first founding pastors of Lutheranism to emigrate to Australia. He was born in Liebenwerde, Germany, migrated to Australia in 1841, and died and was buried at Lobethal, South Australia.
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[edit] Training and Early Ministry
Gotthard Fritzsche went to Breslau after his gymnasium training, to receive his university training. There he studied under Johann Gottfried Scheibel. As was customary, after his university education he served as a private tutor. At his first examination for entering the ministry, he declared himself to be against the Prussian Union, and was banned from ministry in the State church. He joined the underground Old Lutheran church as a Flying Pastor, who travelled from place to place disguised as a travelling tradesman, and performing secret worship services and rites to those opposed to the State church. After a time he grew weary of the work, and he travelled to Hamburg.
[edit] Immigration to Australia
Fritzsche arrived in Hamburg at a time when a group of Prussian Old Lutherans were searching for financing and a pastor to join their group in emigrating to South Australia. In 1840, at the synodical gathering of the newly constituted Lutheran Church in Australia, a request had been sent to the Old Lutherans in Prussia to send a second Pastor, to the young German settlement. A requirement had been imposed on them by the Prussian government, that they must be accompanied by a pastor before emigration would be permitted.
Gotthard Fritzsche was not of the mind to emigrate. He had already declined an invitation by Johannes Grabau to immigrate to the United States. However, he did relent to the requests of the people who were waiting to emigrate to South Australia. Fritzsche traveled to meet with George Angas of the South Australia Company in England. His purpose was to attempt to gain financing for the balance of the fares, a sum of over £2000. Angas was unable to provide any financing to the group. Fritzsche returned to Hamburg with no financial assistance at all. It was in early June that a letter was received from a “Mrs. Richardson in Newcastle UK”, with a sum of £270. The remainder of the required finances £1800 was donated by one of the emigrants, Mrs Nerlich. Fritzsche had engaged her daughter Dora, while in Hamburg.
The group set sail for Australia, on 11 July 1841 on the Skjold arriving on October 28, 1841 at Port Misery, South Australia. The migrants settled at Lobethal, and Bethenien. Fritzsche made his home at Lobethal.
[edit] Settlement in South Australia
Gotthard Fritzsche took on pastoral duties at Lobethal, and the neighboring communities. Relations with the earlier Prussian settlers was initially quite harmonious, however this was to change. In 1842 Pastor August Kavel in an attempt to consolidate the settlers into one localized community, strongly urged the settlers in the early settlements at Klemzig and Hahndorf to relocate to the newly settled Langmeil. Many of the settlers in these towns refused, and an underlying tension arose between these communities and Pastor Kavel.
[edit] Division in the Church
Over time, Gotthard Fritzsche learned that Pastor Kavel had developed a millennialistic point of view (a point of view he disagreed with), and had the subject discussed at the synod gatherings in 1844, and 1845. No resolution was reached at either of these gatherings. In addition to this disagreement, Fritzsche also differed with Pastor Kavel in a proclamation released in 1846 regarding the power of civil government in the church. These disagreements between the two pastors intensified a division which had developed in the Lutheran community.
At the synodical gathering at Bethany, on August 16 and 17 1846, the subject of millennialism was once again tabled, and when the disagreement became heated, a divide was forged, when the Kavel followers left and formed their own separate synod. At this point Gotthard Fritzsche became the head of the Evangelical Church of South Australia.
[edit] References
- "The Confessional Lutheran Emigrations From Prussia And Saxony Around 1839", Westerhaus, Martin O.
- "Records from the following Lutheran Churches", Lutheran Church of Australia Archives
- "The Diary of the Voyage", Private webpages of DIANE CUMMINGS
- "Australia." and "Fritzsche, Gotthard Daniel", Christian Cyclopedia, The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod
