Dahlemickie kazanie Otto Eichela wygłoszone w kościele św. Jana w Gdańsku w październiku 1934 r.
The Dahlemist Sermon Preached in St. John’s Church in Danzig in October 1934 by Pastor Otto Eichel

Summary/Abstract: The sermon preached by Otto Eichel in Danzig in October 1934 is the prime example of a sermon delivered by a pastor of the Confessing Church to his parishioners. The sermon is worth quoting for many reasons. Firstly, there are very few sermons left in the preserved documents of the Danzig Consistorium. Secondly, it was given in a particular time, several days after the Dahlem Synod, a dozen or so months after the seizure of power by the Nazis. Finally, Otto Eichel himself was a very interesting person. He was an ordinary priest who never held any significant posts in the Evangelical Church of the Old Prussian Union, and then a member of the Confessing Church who served in St. John’s during the whole time of the Nazi rule in the Free City of Danzig. Otto Eichel was certainly an outstanding personality – courageous and caring about his parishioners and about the purity of teaching based on the Bible and the Reformation. He remained with his diminishing number of parishioners to the very end, even in the very difficult time of the last months of the war in 1945. During his Sunday services participants were informed frankly about the situation of the Church in Germany, about the synods of the Confessing Church and the Council of Brethren’s resolutions. Those priests who were imprisoned and harassed by the Gestapo were prayed for. His firm attitude, stemming from the beliefs resulting from the Dahlem faction of the Confessing movement caused him a lot of problems. He was forced to take a leave, was fined and harassed by the Gestapo. His sermon, certainly one among many others, is a testimony to his definite attitude in a totalitarian state, his opposition against the violation of the Church and human rights. By analyzing the sermon line by line the reader gets a clear insight into the construction of this document, its content and the arguments used.

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