St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Congregation Pretoria (German)

More than a hundred years ago, on 15 and 16 June 1899, during the Synod on Ebenezer near Uelzen, it was decided that Pastor Hellberg would hold a worship service in Johannesburg or any other suitable surrounding place once a year. He travelled by train from Glencoe to Johannesburg. During 1925 the Wittenberg congregation decided that their pastor would hold a service in Krugersdorp once a year. He would also visit members at Eendracht (later Leandra) and Springs. In the absence of the pastor, families gathered in private homes to listen to the Word of the Lord (through readings, brass and choir accompaniment).

On March 14, 1946 (just after World War II), Pastor Herbert Böhmer returned from Germany, where he completed his theological studies (and spent about two years in Gestapo captivity for preaching about Jesus Christ). He accepted the position as traveling synodical pastor with simultaneous responsibility for the Panbult congregation (as a subsidiary of Wittenberg).

On 11 February 1950 the Evangelical Lutheran St. Paul’s Congregation was officially constituted in Johannesburg as a subsidiary Congregation of the Free Evangelical Lutheran Synod in South Africa and on 25 February 1951 the newly established congregation decided to approach the Panbult congregation with the request that the two be merged into one congregation. The Panbult Congregation however declined. Pastor Böhmer therefore moved to Johannesburg. Because the synod could not pay him a salary, he accepted a parallel teaching position at the nearby Goudveld High School.

It was in the early 1950s that the idea was raised to hold services in Pretoria as well. The request for Pastor Böhmer to also serve the members in Pretoria was approved by the synodical council and so a subsidiary of the Evangelical Lutheran St. Paul’s Congregation in Johannesburg was constituted in Pretoria. According to oral tradition the congregation started to hold services in the Old Arts Building of the University of Pretoria in and around 1954. Eight years later in September 1960, Pastor Böhmer resigned for health reasons and moved to Philippi outside Cape Town.

His successor, the young Pastor Ernst-August Albers from Sottorf, Germany, lived out his ministry with great zeal and dedication. He made special efforts very quickly to master Afrikaans and serve the Afrikaans part of the congregation in their mother tongue.

Gradually more and more people moved from the countryside to Johannesburg and Pretoria. Both congregations grew – especially in Pretoria. Pretoria therefore considered erecting its own church building. During a congregational meeting on 14 August 1966 in Johannesburg, it was decided to set up a committee to investigate the construction of a church or church hall in Pretoria.

After the project was approved, the cornerstone of the new church building was laid on 28 July 1968 by the then President (Präses) Ludwig Wiesinger based on the text in Isaiah 28 verse 16. The inauguration took place on 2 March 1969.

Although the Pretoria congregation still shared a pastor with the Johannesburg congregation, it was constituted as an independent synodical subsidiary on 6 June 1970 accepting the same name as the congregation in Johannesburg (Evangelical Lutheran St. Paul’s Congregation).

Living in Johannesburg, Pastor Eckart Schroeder held services in Pretoria as well as in Ventersdorp, Springs, Benoni and Klerksdorp.

On January 7, 1971, the Pretoria called its own pastor, namely Pastor Helmut Neddens from Germany. He delivered his first sermon in German and the following Sunday in English. On 21 February 1971 he was installed as pastor of the congregation and a week later he held his first baptism in Afrikaans. On April 3, 1971, the congregation decided to build a parsonage (with 4 bedrooms) and a hall on the existing church grounds. During June 1972, the Neddens family moved into their new home.