Editing East Germany (section)

==== Protestantism ====
{{Main|de:Bund der Evangelischen Kirchen in der DDR|l1=Bund der Evangelischen Kirchen in der DDR}}

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-W0613-039, Sitzung des Martin-Luther-Komitees.jpg|thumb|right|A 1980 meeting between representatives of the BEK and Erich Honecker]]

East Germany, historically, was majority [[Protestant]] (primarily [[Lutheran]]) from the early stages of the [[Protestant Reformation]] onwards. In 1948, freed from the influence of the [[Nazism|Nazi-oriented]] [[German Christians (movement)|German Christians]], [[Lutheran]], [[Calvinism|Reformed]], and [[united and uniting churches|United churches]] from most parts of Germany united as the [[Protestant Church in Germany]] (''Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland''; EKD) at the Conference of Eisenach (''Kirchenversammlung von Eisenach'').

In 1969, the regional Protestant churches in East Germany and East Berlin{{efn|The Eastern churches were the [[Evangelical Church of Anhalt]], [[Evangelical Church in Berlin, Brandenburg and Silesian Upper Lusatia#Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg]] (EKiBB, East Ambit, for East Berlin and Brandenburg), [[Evangelical Church of Silesia|Evangelical Church of the Görlitz Ecclesiastical Region]], [[Pomeranian Evangelical Church#Evangelical Church in Greifswald|Evangelical Church in Greifswald]], [[Evangelical Lutheran Church of Mecklenburg]], [[Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Saxony]], [[Evangelical Church of the Church Province of Saxony]] (KPS), [[Evangelical Lutheran Church in Thuringia]] and [[Evangelical Church of the Union]] (East Region, for EKiBB-East Ambit, Görlitz, Greifswald and KPS, and since 1970 for Anhalt too).}} broke away from the EKD and formed the ''{{ill|Federation of Protestant Churches in the German Democratic Republic|de|Bund der Evangelischen Kirchen in der DDR}}'' ({{langx|de|link=no|Bund der Evangelischen Kirchen in der DDR}}; BEK); the [[Moravian Church|Moravian]] ''Herrnhuter Brüdergemeinde'' also joined in 1970. In June 1991, following the German reunification, the BEK churches remerged with the EKD.

Between 1956 and 1971, the [[leadership]] of the East German Lutheran churches gradually changed its relations with the state from hostility to cooperation.<ref>Martin Onnasch, "Konflikt und Kompromiss: Die Haltung der evangelischen Kirchen zu den gesellschaftlichen Veränderungen in der DDR am Anfang der fünfziger Jahre," ["Conflict and compromise: the position of the Protestant churches with regard to social changes in the GDR at the beginning of the 1950s"], ''Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte / Halbjahresschrift für Theologie und Geschichtswisseschaft,'' 1990, Vol. 3 Issue 1, pp.&nbsp;152–165.</ref> From the founding of the GDR in 1949, the Socialist Unity Party sought to weaken the influence of the Church on the rising generation. The Church adopted an attitude of confrontation and distance toward the state. Around 1956 this began to develop into a more neutral stance accommodating conditional loyalty. The government was no longer regarded as illegitimate; instead, church leaders started to view the authorities as installed by God and, therefore, deserving of obedience by Christians. Still, churches reserved their right to reject state demands on matters that they felt were not in accordance with the will of God. There were both structural and intentional causes behind this development. Structural causes included the hardening of Cold War tensions in Europe in the mid-1950s, which made it clear that the East German state was not temporary. The loss of church members also made it clear to church leaders that they had to come into some kind of dialogue with the state. The intentions behind the change of attitude varied from a traditional liberal Lutheran acceptance of secular power to a positive attitude toward socialist ideas.<ref name="Stephen R. Bowers 1982, pp 73-86">{{Cite journal |last=Bowers |first=Stephen R. |date=Spring 1982 |title=Private Institutions in Service to the State: The German Democratic Republic's Church in Socialism |journal=[[East European Quarterly]] |volume=16 |pages=73–86 |number=1}}</ref>

[[Manfred Stolpe]] became a lawyer for the Brandenburg Protestant Church in 1959 before taking up a position at church headquarters in Berlin. In 1969 he helped found the {{lang|de|Bund der Evangelischen Kirchen in der DDR}} (BEK), where he negotiated with the government while at the same time working within the institutions of this Protestant body. He won the regional elections for the Brandenburg state assembly at the head of the SPD list in 1990. Stolpe remained in the Brandenburg government until he joined the federal government in 2002.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2020-12-29 |title=Startseite - Manfred Stolpe |url=https://manfred-stolpe.de |access-date=2024-10-07 |language=de-DE}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Augustine |first=Dolores L. |date=2004 |title=The Impact of Two Reunification-Era Debates on the East German Sense of Identity |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4140983 |journal=German Studies Review |volume=27 |issue=3 |pages=563–578 |doi=10.2307/4140983 |jstor=4140983}}</ref>

Apart from the Protestant state churches ({{langx|de|link=no|label=none|[[Landeskirche]]n}}, united in the EKD/BEK) and the [[Catholic Church]], there were a number of smaller Protestant bodies, including Protestant [[Free Churches]] ({{langx|de|link=no|label=none|Evangelische Freikirchen}}) united in the {{ill|Federation of the Free Protestant Churches in the German Democratic Republic|de|Bund Evangelisch-Freikirchlicher Gemeinden in der DDR}} and the {{ill|Federation of the Free Protestant Churches in Germany|de|Bund Freier evangelischer Gemeinden in Deutschland}}, as well as the [[Evangelical Lutheran Free Church (Germany)|Free Lutheran Church]], the [[Old Lutherans|Old Lutheran Church]], and [[Federation of the Reformed Churches in the German Democratic Republic]]. The [[Moravian Church]] also had its presence as the {{lang|de|Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine}}. There were also other Protestants such as [[Methodism|Methodists]], [[Adventists]], [[Mennonites]], and [[Quakers]].