Ironically, I appear to be anchoring the end of a line of religious men. Family records trace a direct male line back eleven generations over 400 years, through a handful of reverends and missionaries, to the father of the man pictured in the stamp above.
Paul Gerhardt, remembered on this 1957 German stamp, was a Lutheran pastor and hymn-writer in 17th century Germany. (Coincidentally, my father’s family was living in Germany at the time this stamp was issued.) His words are still found in hymnals throughout the world.
Gerhardt lived during the religious conflict of the Thirty Years War, and preached at the church of St. Nicholas in Berlin, where he became immensely popular even as the conflict between Lutherans and the Reformed Church raged.
From Christian Singers of Germany, by Catherine Winkworth:
His sermons, as well as his writings, were so free from controversy that many Calvinists attended his services, and his hymns had no greater admirer than the pious Electress Louisa, who herself belonged to the Reformed Church.
However, he lost his appointment at St. Nicholas after refusing to sign an edict drawn up by Prussian Elector Frederick William I, prohibiting ministers from both the Lutheran and Reformed Churches from attacking each other’s doctrines. Although Gerhardt apparently refrained from such attacks anyway, he felt the edict violated the legal rights of the clergy.
Accordingly a great number of the clergy refused to sign, and were deposed; and these were in general strongly supported by their flocks. Nearly the whole of the Berlin clergy took this part, and one of the most resolute among them was Paul Gerhardt, who being very ill at the time, assembled his brethren around his sick-bed, and entreated them to be steadfast in asserting their right to freedom of speech.
Gerhardt had already lost three of his five children, and during the time following his removal from office his wife and a fourth child died, as well. Apparently, many of his most beautiful hymns were written during this time.
Meanwhile the city of Berlin did not take the loss of its favorite preacher quietly. Meetings were held and petitions addressed to the Elector — first by the burghers and guilds of trade, then by the Town Council, and finally by the Estates of Brandenburg, whose entreaty was said to have the support in private of the Electress herself.
Eventually, the Elector offered to reinstate Gerhardt based on his history as a conscientious preacher. But Gerhardt refused when it became clear he would be expected to follow the spirit of the edict even if he wouldn’t be required to sign it. Gerhardt then moved out of Berlin, accepting a post in Saxony, where he lived until his death in 1676.
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What to make of descriptions of an ancestor who lived four hundred years ago when certain character traits sound a hell of a lot like oneself? And like one’s father? And grandfather?
He had a very tender and scrupulous conscience, and wherever a question of conscience seemed to him to be involved, he was liable to great mental conflict and an exaggerated estimate of trifles.
