sented at the
organization of the General Synod at Hagerstown. At the same time it
planned a union seminary and organic union with the German Reformed
Church. In 1823 it severed its connection with the General Synod, which
was followed by a long period of indifferentism. In 1850 the Ministerium
established official relations with the Gettysburg Seminary. In 1853 it
returned officially to a confessional position, adopting "the
fundamental doctrines of the Gospel as these are expressed in the
confessional writings of our Evangelical Lutheran Church and especially
in the Unaltered Augsburg Confession." In the same year, urging all
other Lutheran bodies to follow the example, the Ministerium, by a vote
of 52 against 28, resolved to reunite with the General Synod. In 1864
its delegates withdrew from the sessions of the General Synod at York
because of the admission of the un-Lutheran Franckean Synod. In the same
year the Seminary at Philadelphia was founded. In the organization of
the General Council the Ministerium of Pennsylvania was the prime mover.
At present it numbers about 400 pastors and 580 congregations with a
communicant membership of 160,000, more than one-fifth of them being
German. 2. The New York Ministerium. This body, when organized in 1786,
confessed the Lutheran symbols. In 1794 it adopted the new constitution
of the Pennsylvania Synod, containing no reference to the symbols. Under
Quitman a period of rationalism and Socinianism followed, and under
Hazelius (since 1815 professor in Hartwick Seminary) a period of
Methodistic revivalism. In 1859 the Ministerium acknowledged the
Augsburg Confession "as a correct exhibition of the fundamental
doctrines of the divine Word," and in 1867, having severed its
connection with the General Synod, extended its confession to embrace
all the Lutheran symbols. The New York Ministerium has repeatedly passed
through a change of language. It numbers about 57,000 communicants, 160
congregations, and as many pastors. 3. The Pittsburgh Synod. It was
organized in 1845 and admitted by the General Synod in 1853. Under W.A.
Passavant it became the "Missionary Synod," to which the Canada, Texas,
Minnesota, and Nova Scotia synods owe their origin. It reports 155
pastors and 190 congregations with a communicant membership of 24,000.
4. The English District Synod of Ohio, organized in 1857 and, in 1869,
because of its connection with the Council, stricken from the roster of
the Joint Sy