In Pursuit of Religious Freedom: Bishop Martin Stephan's Journey

by Stephan, Philip

  In 1816, Julia gave birth to a set of twins, Adelheid Marie and Martin IV—continuing the Stephan tradition of maintaining the name of Martin. They were born on March 10, 1816, and Martin died three weeks later, on March 30, of unknown causes. His mother grieved at his death and wrote some poetry in memory of this child. The following poem has remained in the Stephan family through Theo Stephan and through Karl Knoebel, Julia’s brother.

  Her poem in German shows the rhythm and beauty of her language; the translation gives the meaning. Although the English does not have the same poetic beauty, it reveals the beautiful love of a grieving mother.

  An Meinen Kleinen Martin

  Martin—Martin holder Knabe,

  Welcher Knabe war dir gleich?

  Wenn ich Dich in Armen habe,

  Tausch ich fuer kein Koenigreich

  Zwar werd ich an heilger Staette

  Dich als jungen Mann nich sehn,

  Nicht im heiligen Gebete

  Dann fuer Dich um Gnade flehn.

  Ruhe von des Lebens Schmerzen,

  Die mir oft das Herz zerknirscht,

  Aus—wenn Du mit trenam Herzen

  Eine Herde weiden wirst.

  Darum flehet jetzt mein Glaube

  Weil’s fuer mich noch heute heisst,

  Dass auf Dir—Du zarte Taube,

  Zweifach ruh’ des Vaters Geist.

  Werke einst wie er im Segen—

  Und verkuendige den Herrn,

  Soil auch Hass und Neid sich regen,

  Wie Dein Vater treu und gern.

  Dann wirst an des Himmels Pforte

  Du auch durch den Glanz beglueckt.

  Den nach Gottes heil’gem Worte

  Alle treuen Lehrer schmuechkt

  Moecht’ ich dann in jenen Auen,

  Herr!—wenn Du dies Glueck mir goennst,—

  Feme nur vom firne schauen

  Wie men lieber Martin glaenzt.

  Am 1 September, 1824

  To My Tiny Martin

  Martin—Martin lovely boy,

  Which boy could be like you?

  When I hold you in my arms,

  I wouldn’t trade you for a kingdom.

  Yet I will never see you

  As a young man in the holy place

  Will not in sacred prayer

  Ask for grace to be shed upon you.

  Rest from the pains of life—

  That often crush my heart—

  When you with a faithful heart

  Will shepherd a flock.

  Therefore, my faith now prays,

  Because it is still clear to me,

  That upon you—you tender dove—

  Would rest a double portion of your father’s spirit.

  Labor just like him with blessing,

  And proclaim the Lord—

  Even if hate and envy will arise—

  Just like your father, faithfully and gladly.

  Then you will be made to rejoice

  At heaven’s gate with the glory

  That adorns all faithful teachers,

  According to God’s Holy Word.

  May I then on yonder fields,

  Lord—if you grant to me this fortune—

  Even from a distance view,

  How my dear Martin shines.

  Written on September 1, 182410

  The Stephans’ next daughter was Marie Elizabeth, born February 4, 1818. She appears to have had some kind of facial birthmark. Marie would later take up her father’s cause and create a Bible society in the city of Freistadt, Germany, where she lived and worked developing the Bible society until her death on February 4, 1877, at the age of fifty-eight.

  Another daughter, born January 19, 1820, was named Concordia Felicitas after the complete book of Lutheran Confessions, the Book of Concord. She lived in London for a time and was a favorite aunt of her sister Margaretha’s children. Another hearing and speech impaired daughter was born on January 28, 1822, and named Anna Theodosie, meaning “Anna a gift of God.” “Anna” was also the name of Martin’s youngest sister who had died six months after her birth. No medical history or genealogical evidence suggests that either Julia or Martin carried a gene for profound deafness. One might speculate that it came from Martin’s side of the family, considering his sister Anna’s early death and commentaries about Martin’s own speaking patterns mentioned earlier.11

  The next child and only surviving son, Martin V, was born July 23,1823, and so named to keep alive the naming tradition that now extended to the fifth generation. Another daughter followed on August 1, 1825, Margaretha Renate. The next daughter was Friederike Augustine, born December 1, 1828. She, too, was hearing and speech impaired. A second set of twins was born December 28, 1831. They were named Dorothea and Clotilde and died after six months in August of 1832. There is no record of the cause of death.

  Margaretha, the ninth child, and Julia, the eldest, were the only daughters to marry. Julia married Dr. Adolf Eduard Prolss, a principal of the Freiberg, Saxony, Gymnasium (high school), October 5, 1835, after their engagement on Easter Sunday that same year. She gave birth to Julius Adolf Prolss on December 30, 1836, and died in childbirth the same day. In 1858 Margaretha married the pastor Waldan who lived in the town of Werdan, province of Thuringia.

  At the age of fifteen, Martin V would immigrate with his father to America. There he would enter the gymnasium, the German equivalent of four years of high school and two years of college. He would return home to Germany to assist his mother with his seven sisters and there graduate from architecture school, the profession of his mother’s family. Eventually he would rejoin the Saxon colony in Missouri.

  Although Martin III was a mature thirty-three at the time of their marriage, Julia was only twenty-two years old. Within a year she delivered her first of twelve children including two sets of twins, giving birth at an average rate of every other year. For twenty-one years her life was totally occupied with pregnancy and nursing small children, simultaneously managing their well being as they grew older. Even with domestic help this represents a terrific challenge, especially with the heartache of three infant deaths and three profoundly deaf children. More than likely Martin was involved with his duties at the church and in the wider Lutheran community. And as would be expected for the gender roles of the time, she probably did not get much help from him.

  When a family has physically challenged children, the parents are often distressed and challenged in providing them the required special care. Accepting a child’s disability, and accepting the disabled child, are difficult emotional issues for many parents. Julia and Martin had three impaired children. These girls were apparently not placed in the Institute for the Deaf until 1839, just after Martin left for America. At that time Anna and Friedericke were seventeen and eleven years old respectively. Celestine, the first daughter born deaf, would then have been twenty-six; she continued to live with her godmother. In 1844 Julia wrote to Martin V in America that Celestine had been confirmed in St. Anne’s Lutheran Church, where Julia’s grandparents were members.

  The large family placed great demands on Julia and Martin. Although she had housemaids and live-in help, Julia must have involved herself deeply in the children’s care and development. In addition to the three infant deaths, they lost their firstborn, Julia, who died in childbirth at the age of twenty-five. The losses this family suffered must have had a profound emotional impact on the entire family. The care and special treatment required of them as parents adds to their burden of grief. It would be more than many couples could handle. They did manage to move through these crises, but there was a price to pay. Not surprisingly, Martin and Julia’s marriage suffered under the stress. The pressures of loss can reduce each partner’s capacity for compassion for the other’s grief in dealing with their own loss.

  Although there was personal grief and loss during the early years in Dresden, not everything was a struggle. Stephan’s pastorate was more successful than he ever imagined. He quickly established himself in this Bo
hemian congregation of St. John’s. The congregation’s history paralleled that of the Stephan family.

  The congregation dated back to 1624, and its members were the descendants of those who had fled first Austria and finally Bohemia and Moravia in 1624 when King Ferdinand II ordered Lutherans to leave the country. They eventually moved to Pirna, eleven miles south of Dresden. The citizens and the city council of Pirna welcomed them. Because they spoke Czech they were allowed their own pastors and teachers who spoke their language in the Nicolai Church in Pirna.

  During the many battles of the time, the refugees sought the protection of the fortified cities, so in 1639 they moved from Pirna to Dresden. They petitioned the Dresden government for permission to hold public services in the home of their pastor. Elector John II granted this request without conditions. For the next ten years they worshiped in their pastor’s residence.

  The Bohemian ancestors were spiritually strong, states Koepchen, and he describes these people as steadfast in their faith commitment.

  Bohemian Exiles always retained and manifested a certain clannish separatist spirit, undoubtedly flowing from their strict and steadfast adherence to the ancient doctrinal system, their peculiar church polity, their devotional meetings on Sunday and weekdays, and, above all, from their ardent hope that they would some day be permitted to return to their homes in Bohemia, and again worship the Lord in their country’s language.12

  Unfortunately, they could never return to their home, according to the terms of the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia. Because they were evangelicals, now called Protestants, they were forbidden to return to Bohemia and Moravia, which was solidly Roman Catholic. But they were not deterred by this treaty and accepted their lot. They petitioned Elector John again, this time for a church where they might conduct their evangelical service in their own language. By Elector John’s order on May 15,1650, they were granted the free use of the St. John’s Cemetery Chapel for their services.

  Since this property was outside the Dresden city walls, the city council allowed their pastor to preach to such Germans who chose to go to the Czech services held before the city gates were opened in the morning. The German service at St. John’s was scheduled for 6:30 a.m. and the Bohemian worship was conducted at 10:00 a.m. In time they bought a building on outer Pirnaische Strasse known as number 232 that was used as a parsonage and parish schoolhouse. They had brought money with them from Bohemia and had saved over the years in Germany. They paid twelve thousand Gulden for the building and deposited more money with the Department of Finance of the Saxon government, to be used for maintenance of the building, the salaries of the pastor and teacher, and the poor of the parish.

  A photo made in 1924 shows the original chapel and walled cemetery.13 The original structure had been replaced with a stone building some time before Stephan’s arrival. This structure stood in the midst of St. John’s Cemetery, on Pirnaische Strasse in Pirnaische Platz. The building was destroyed in the bombing of Dresden in World War II. Only the open square remains.

  Under their unique charter, the state church permitted the Bohemian congregation free choice of their elders and pastor, the exercise of their system of church discipline as well as their “irregular” religious gatherings, common in the Brethren tradition but not widely accepted in Germany. These special gatherings and services, called “conventicles,” were led by the pastor on Tuesday mornings and Friday afternoons. Small study groups were formed (called “Erbauungsstunden,” or edification hours) in which the Bible was studied and applied to personal life. These gatherings emphasized a rich personal prayer life and were held on Sunday afternoons and on Monday and Friday evenings. On Sunday afternoons the sermon of that morning was discussed. The German Church correctly viewed these midweek services as inspired by the pietists, and German Lutherans were uneasy with that emotional and personal type of religion. Saxon laws had prohibited what they called “separatist” meetings.

  The roots of these “special” practices lay in Philip Spener’s pietism that developed especially within the Bohemian and Moravian Brethren Church. This awakening was a spiritual response to the Thirty Years’ War, a personal reaction to the horror of massive killing that took place in the name of faith. Spener (1635–1705), the father of pietism, had been intent upon a moral and spiritual reformation. He hated controversy and war over doctrine and believed it generated an arid form of Christianity that had little to do with daily life. He introduced the small group into church life and structure as “little churches in the Church.” Yet he was vociferously accused of being untrue to Lutheran teaching and doctrine. One of the most contentious parts of his theology was his belief that if a person was really converted and had a right heart, doctrinal differences were relatively unimportant.

  August Francke was a protégé of Philip Spener and largely responsible for the introduction of Pietism at the University of Halle where Martin Stephan had studied. Under his influence the movement came to be called “the awakening.” Latourette states that this awakening started the pietism movement in seventeenth-century Germany, and it was quite pronounced in Lutheranism. Count von Zinzendorf, who had allowed the Moravian refugees to build a village on his estates, led the “awakening” aspect of pietism and profoundly affected its tradition. It had an especially marked influence in the rise of the Moravian Brethren Church. Their evangelical work spread from Herrnhut, a town seventy miles from Dresden.14

  [They] ... made much of a personal religious experience [as Spener had done], of a new birth through trust in Christ, commitment to him, and faith in what God had done through him in the incarnation, the cross, and the resurrection. Indeed, some beliefs were so widely held ... they came to be known as “Evangelical” ... the awakening was intensely missionary [sic].15

  The background of these services at St. John’s demonstrates their strong United Brethren tradition. After 1650, the Bohemians were somewhat settled and conformed mostly to the Evangelical tradition. They worshipped in their native Czech language, elected a spiritual council from their own group and an advisory church board to supervise the life of the congregation.

  The practice of midweek prayers and study had continued for a century and a half until Stephan became pastor. He gladly and readily continued in this pietistic spirit, for this was his rearing, training, and spiritual lifeblood. He drew on his own ancestral roots so similar to those of the congregation.

  When he facilitated these gatherings he was really in his element. It was here that the people who attended these meetings had access to the person of Martin Stephan. He was at his relaxed best in these groups. No doubt in this familiar setting Martin revealed the warm and understanding side of his person. Here, as the people learned to know him and he them, they grew to love him.

  Like his predecessor pastors, on December 20, 1809, he petitioned to have services in German in addition to the Czech or so called “Bohemian” worship. He was granted that authority by the Dresden City Council. On April 13, 1810, he preached his inaugural sermon at St. John’s Lutheran Church on the text which became the theme of his ministry, Romans 1:16, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ.” The soul of Pietism is summed up in this motto. Stephan took his cue from Philip Spener who revealed the same personal relationship with Christ as “his one passion in life.”

  Over time, these Pietistic practices of midweek prayer services and study groups gained popularity, and other pietists in Dresden came to prefer the meetings and services at St. John’s Lutheran to their own. One group even dissolved its own meetings to join in and hear the Bohemian-speaking pastor. During this time both the congregation and Pastor Stephan flourished. The congregation expanded six times its original number to one thousand communicants by 1819. The original group of thirty Bohemian families was outnumbered now by the German congregation. The two groups had not integrated very well. Two separate services in two different languages were held on Sundays, which fostered this separation. At times this would prove troublesome for Stephan and for the St. John
’s congregation.

  As Stephan’s reputation grew and the congregation flourished so did his influence increase in Dresden and in Saxony. His reputation as a preacher and counselor became known in many parts of Dresden. A broad range of people came to find spiritual hope for their lives. As a result, the German part of the congregation grew more than the Czech members. Stephan became a leader in the Saxon Bible Society and the Dresden Missionary Society. He was active in the German Society for the Promotion of Pure Doctrine and Holy Life. Sometimes congregations are not pleased to share their pastor and feel as though the pastor is neglecting his duties or neglecting them. Already by 1814 some of the Bohemian members of St. John’s church began to complain that Pastor Stephan was gone too much and neglecting his duties.16

  NOTES

  1 P F. Hanewinkel, transcriber, “Hanewinkel Notes for W. H. T. Dau,” Hanewinkel Notes, f4–f10 (St. Louis: Concordia Historical Institute, 1929), 3. In 1921, Professor W. H. T. Dau, a teacher at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri, asked F. Hanewinkel, who was a pastor in Dresden, Saxony, to conduct extensive research of all the material on Martin Stephan and the rise of the so-called Stephanism in the archives and libraries of Dresden. Hanewinkel’s research netted extensive material. He sent at least two hundred pages of handwritten information in old German script. There were references to court records and to personal family legal matters mentioned in this book. The material was turned over to Ludwig Fuerbringer, president of Concordia Seminary at the time. Upon Fuerbringer’s death the material was released to Concordia Historical Institute located on the campus of the Seminary.