First a ban on practicing his profession, now disciplinary proceedings against Pastor Michaelis.
The Evangelical Church of Germany (EKD), or rather its branch in Quedlinburg, has initiated disciplinary proceedings against Pastor Michaelis.
It had previously banned him from practising his profession because he wanted to stand as a candidate for the AfD city council. The EKD shows its totalitarian colors unvarnished.
AfD, Alternative for Germany (German: Alernative für Deutschland) is branded as a right-wing populist political party.
The Evangelical Church of Germany (EKD) has long since turned away from its perception of local church work and traditional Christian values and ideas and towards left-wing ideologies.
During the peak phase of the coronavirus coercive measures, its representatives were at the forefront of agitating against critics of the vaccination ideology and coercive measures. In addition, the EKD uses the money ripped off from the faithful to finance ships to work hand in hand with smugglers and traffickers in illegal migration.
Today, the EKD serves the government's predetermined line to the same extent as its predecessors did in the darkest times of German history.
As in those days, bans on practicing the profession and other coercive measures against critics and non-conformist members within its own ranks are part of the repertoire of “Gleichschaltung”.
The Nazi term Gleichschaltung or "coordination" was the process of Nazification by which Adolf Hitler - leader of the Nazi Party in Germany - successively established a system of totalitarian control and coordination over all aspects of German society "from the economy and trade associations to the media, culture and education".
The National Socialist takeover was initially received positively by the Protestant church. The "Faith Movement of German Christians" had already been in existence since 1932.
This association of Protestant National Socialists had received almost a third of the votes in the synodal elections in the Old Prussian Union, the largest Protestant regional church, in September 1932. This made it possible for the Nazi leadership to bring the Protestant church into line from within.
After massive propaganda, the German Christians won the church elections in the newly created unified Reichskirche on July 23, 1933 and thus provided the bishops in almost all Protestant regional churches.
On September 27, Hitler's "Plenipotentiary for the Affairs of the Protestant Church", Ludwig Müller (1883-1945), became Reich Bishop. He strove to introduce the Führer principle for the Reich Church and transferred the Protestant youth associations to the Hitler Youth in December 1933.
The Quedlinburg pastor Martin Michaelis is currently feeling the full force of this. First, he was banned from practicing his profession by the local branch of the EKD in Quedlinburg: Pastor Michaelis was forbidden from holding church services in his parish. Now he is also facing disciplinary proceedings.
Michaelis did not defile children, like numerous other dignitaries of the two German state churches; nor did he squander the money ripped off from the faithful for himself, like Bishop van Elst of Limburg with his palace; nor did he drive drunk and get caught like Käßmann. Michaelis' transgressions are much more serious in the eyes of the EKD: He stood as a non-party candidate for the city council elections for the AfD.
Abusing children, gambling away money, drinking until you vomit - the German state churches have no problem with that. There might be a raised index finger, an insistent "why, why and why!" and the requirement to pray twelve rosaries and three "Our Fathers!"; then the matter is off the table.
But to stand as a candidate for the AfD is, according to the German official churches, sacrilege of the very first kind. It's tantamount to a free ride "south", where it's pretty hot and smells of sulfur.
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