The Evangelical Church in Germany (, EKD) is a federation of twenty Lutheran, Reformed, and United Protestant regional churches in Germany, collectively encompassing the vast majority of the country's Protestants. In English, it uses the name Protestant Church in Germany. In 2025, the EKD had a membership of 17.4 million members, or 20.8% of the German population. It constitutes one of the largest Protestant bodies in the world. Church offices managing the federation are located in Herrenhausen, Hanover, Lower Saxony. Many of its members consider themselves Lutherans.
Historically, the first formal attempt to unify German Protestantism occurred during the Weimar Republic era in the form of the German Protestant Church Confederation, which existed from 1922 until 1933. Earlier, there had been successful royal efforts at unity in various German states, beginning with Prussia and several minor German states (e.g. Duchy of Nassau) in 1817. These unions resulted in the first united and uniting churches, a new development within Protestantism which later spread to other parts of the world. When Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, his administration tried to reorganize the old confederation into a unified German Evangelical Church as Hitler wanted to use a single Protestant church to further his own ambitions. However, a division emerged between the Reichskirche, led by the pro-government German Christians, and the Confessing Church, which opposed state control of the church. Other Protestant churches aligned themselves with one of these groups, or stayed neutral in this church strife. The postwar church council issued the Stuttgart Declaration of Guilt on 19 October 1945, confessing guilt and declaring remorse for indifference and inaction of German Protestants in the face of atrocities committed by Hitler's regime. In 1948, the Protestant Church in Germany was organized in the aftermath of World War II to function as a new umbrella organization for German Protestant churches. As a result of tensions between West and East Germany, the regional churches in East Germany broke away from the EKD in 1969. In 1991, following German reunification, the East German churches re-joined the EKD.
The member churches (Gliedkirchen), while being independent and having their own theological and formal organisation, share full altar and pulpit fellowship, and are united in the EKD synod, but they act as individual members of the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the Communion of Protestant Churches in Europe (CPCE). Boundaries of EKD churches within Germany partially resemble those of the states of the Holy Roman Empire and successor forms of German statehood (to the most part 1815 borders), due to the historically close relationship between individual German states and churches. As for church governance, the Lutheran churches typically practise an episcopal polity, while the Reformed and the United ones a mixture of presbyterian and congregationalist polities. Most member churches are led by a (state) bishop. Only one member church, the Evangelical Reformed Church, is not restricted to a certain territory. In some ways, the other member churches resemble dioceses of the Catholic, Scandinavian Lutheran and Anglican churches, from an organisational point of view.
Name Etymologically, the German word means "of the Gospel", denoting a Reformation emphasis on , "by scripture alone". Martin Luther encouraged the use of this term alongside Christian.
The German term corresponds to the broad English category of ProtestantPeter Terrell, Harper Collins German Unabridged Dictionary, 4th ed., (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 1999), 273 sub loco. rather than to the narrower term evangelical, a subset of Protestantism distinct from mainline Protestantism. Accordingly, the Church uses the name Protestant Church in Germany in English.
History
From the Peace of Augsburg in 1555 to the end of the First World War and the collapse of the German Empire, some Protestant churches were state churches. Each (state or regional church) was the official church of one of the states of Germany, while the respective ruler was the church's formal head (e.g. the King of Prussia headed the Evangelical Church of Prussia's older Provinces as supreme governor), similar to the British monarch's role as the Supreme Governor of the Church of England.
This changed somewhat with growing religious freedom in the 19th century, especially in the republican states of Bremen, Frankfurt (1857), Lübeck, and Hamburg (1860). The greatest change came after the German revolution of 1918–1919, with the formation of the Weimar Republic and the abdication of the princes of the German states. The system of state churches disappeared with the Weimar Constitution (1919), which brought about disestablishment by the separation of church and state, and there was a desire for the Protestant churches to merge. In fact, a merger was permanently under discussion but never materialised due to strong regional self-confidence and traditions as well as the denominational fragmentation into Lutheran, Reformed, and United and uniting churches.
During the Revolution, when the old church governments lost power, the People's Church Union () was formed and advocated unification without respect to theological tradition and also increasing input from laymen. However, the People's Church Union quickly split along territorial lines after the churches' relationship with the new governments improved.D. Karl Bornhausen, "The Present Status of the Protestant Churches in Germany," The Journal of Religion, Vol. 3, No. 5 (Sep. 1923), 501–524.
It was realised that one mainstream Protestant church for all of Germany was impossible and that any union would need a federal model. The churches met in Dresden in 1919 and created a plan for federation, and this plan was adopted in 1921 at Stuttgart. Then in 1922 the then 28 territorially defined Protestant churches founded the German Evangelical Church Confederation (, DEK). At the time, the federation was the largest Protestant church federation in Europe with around 40 million members. Because it was a federation of independent bodies, the Church Union's work was limited to foreign missions and relations with Protestant churches outside Germany, especially German Protestants in other countries.
In July 1933, the German Evangelical Church (, DEK) was formed under the influence of the German Christians, a pro-Nazi religious movement. They had much influence over the decisions of the first National Synod, via their unambiguous partisanship in successfully backing Ludwig Müller for the office of Reich bishop. He did not manage, however, to prevail over the in the long term. The Confessing Church arose in resistance to the Nazi regime's ideology. After the installation of Hanns Kerrl as minister for church matters in a Führer-directive of 16 July 1935 and the foundation of the – in the end not materialising – Protestant Reich Church, the DEK played more or less no further role.
In 1948, freed from the German Christians' influence, the Lutheran, Reformed (including the German Reformed Church / Reformierte Kirche) and United churches came together as the Protestant Church in Germany at the Conference of Eisenach. In 1969, the regional Protestant churches in East Germany and East BerlinThe Eastern churches were the Evangelical Church of Anhalt, Evangelical Church in Berlin, Brandenburg and Silesian Upper Lusatia#Protestant Church in Berlin-Brandenburg (EKiBB, East Ambit, for East Berlin and Brandenburg), Evangelical Church of the Görlitz Ecclesiastical Region, Evangelical Church in Greifswald, Evangelical Lutheran Church of Mecklenburg, Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Saxony, Evangelical Church of the Church Province of Saxony (KPS), Evangelical Lutheran Church in Thuringia and Evangelical Church of the Union (East Region, for EKiBB-East Ambit, Görlitz, Greifswald and KPS, and since 1970 for Anhalt too). broke away from the EKD and formed the League of Evangelical Churches in the German Democratic Republic (, BEK), in 1970 also joined by the Moravian Herrnhut District. In June 1991, following German reunification, the BEK merged with the EKD.
While the members are no longer state churches, they enjoy constitutional protection as statutory corporations, and they are still called , and some have this term in their official names. A modern English translation, however, would be regional church. Apart from some minor changes, the territories of the member churches today reflect Germany's political organisation in the year 1848, with regional churches for states or provinces that often no longer exist or whose borders changed since. For example, between 1945 and 1948, the remaining six ecclesiastical provinces (), each territorially comprising one of the Old Prussia provinces, within the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union assumed independence as a consequence of the estrangement among them during the Nazi struggle of the churches. This turned the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union into a mere umbrella, being itself a member of EKD (and the BEK, 1969–1991) but covering some regional church bodies, which were again themselves members of EKD (and the BEK, 1969–1991).
Since 1973, when many Protestant churches in Europe, including the EKD members, concluded the Leuenberg Agreement, also the then 21 EKD membersThe Western churches were the Evangelical Church of Baden, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria, Evangelical Church in Berlin, Brandenburg and Silesian Upper Lusatia#Protestant Church in Berlin-Brandenburg (EKiBB, West Ambit, for West Berlin), Bremian Evangelical Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Brunswick, Evangelical Lutheran Church of Eutin, Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Hamburg State, Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Hanover, Protestant Church in Hesse and Nassau, Evangelical Church of Hesse Electorate-Waldeck, Church of Lippe, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Lübeck, Evangelical Reformed Church in Northwestern Germany, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Oldenburg, Evangelical Church of the Palatinate, Evangelical Church in the Rhineland, Evangelical Lutheran Church of Schaumburg-Lippe, Evangelical Lutheran Church of Schleswig-Holstein, Evangelical Church of the Union (West Region, for EKiBB-West Ambit, Rhineland, and Westphalia), Evangelical Church of Westphalia, and Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Württemberg. introduced full communion for their parishioners and ministry among each other.
Since also the regional Protestant churches in East Germany had signed the Leuenberg Agreement, thus the then ten members of the Federation of Protestant Churches in the German Democratic Republic practised full communion with the EKD members too. Ordination of women is practised in all 20 member churches with many women having been ordained in recent years. There are also several women serving as bishops. Margot Käßmann, former bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover and Chairperson of the Council of the EKD from 2009 until February 2010, was the first woman to head the EKD.Deutsche Welle, 2009-10-28. German Protestant Church elects first woman as its leader. Retrieved 2009-10-29. Blessings of same-sex marriages is practised and allowed in 14 of 20 and blessing of same-sex unions are allowed in all other member churches.Ökumenische Arbeitsgruppe Homosexuelle und Kirche (HuK) e. V.: Möglichkeiten der kirchlichen Segnung gleichgeschlechtlicher Paare , 25 April 2016.Johannes Süßmann, Anne Kampf: Segnung Homosexueller: Bunt wie ein Regenbogen. Evangelisch.de, 14 January 2016. The EKD opposes abortion in most situations but believes it should remain legal.