Eine neue Rechtsform für Landeskirchliche Gemeinschaften?

Since the end of the 19th century, local Christian fellowships with a pietistic profile have been established as a supplement to the parishes. These communities offered additional Bible studies and prayer groups for more religiously involved members, as well as evangelistic activities. While these communities have long been complementary forms of church life, their self-image has been changing in recent years. They increasingly see themselves as an alternative form, as fully-fledged congregations. Now some community associations envisage a new legal status: state recognition as »corporation under public law.« The legal and theoretical implications of this step are discussed here. The main finding is that this legal status would transform the inner-church communities into free churches beside the regional churches, which contradicts their previous self-image and would entail considerable costs. Instead, the authors recommend a generous readjustment of the relationship between regional churches and church communities, which would lead to greater scope for independent church life of the communities, so they must not take the step out of the Evangelical Church.