The German Reformed Church was founded as a result of religious changes evolving from the Protestant Reformation. Ulrich Zwingli and John Calvin supported the principles of justification by faith alone and the sole authority of the Bible, but they differed from Martin Luther on other points, especially on the meaning of the Eucharist. Calvin advocated Christ’s spiritual presence in the bread and wine, while Zwingli believed that the elements were mere symbols and that the celebration was a memorial service of Christ’s life and death. The German Reformed Church came to encompass the teachings of both Zwingli and Calvin, with some contributions from Luther’s colleague Philipp Melanchthon.
The German Reformed Church was established in the British colonies by German and Swiss pioneers who migrated to Pennsylvania and other colonies in the early 18th century. Their congregations were mostly widely scattered along the frontier, where most Germans settled because earlier migrants had occupied eastern lands. Because of the scarcity of clergy, the German Reformed Church, like other established denominations, faced difficulties throughout the colonial era; schoolteachers or men who possessed a modicum of religious training often performed the tasks of a minister. Scarce financial resources forced rural congregations to share facilities with other denominations, most commonly Lutherans.
Throughout the colonial period the German Reformed Church had a close relationship with the Dutch Reformed synods of Holland. The Great Awakening that swept the colonies in the 1740s spurred Holland church officials to support their German counterparts by supplying Bibles and catechisms to the people along with additional ministers. When German Reformed ministers formed a denominational organization in 1747, they reported to Reformed Church authorities in Holland and, in return, received financial support from them.
Two pastors, John Philip Boehm and Michael Schlatter, were instrumental in organizing the “Coetus of the German Reformed Congregations in Pennsylvania.” Boehm immigrated from the region of modern-day Germany to the Perkiomen Valley of southeastern Pennsylvania as a schoolteacher in 1720. Soon the Reformed settlers in the area asked him to lead worship services. By 1725 he began to perform pastoral duties, and in 1729 the Classis of Amsterdam ordained him at the request of his congregations. The classis dispatched Swiss-born Michael Schlatter to the British colonies in 1746 expressly to oversee the German Reformed congregations in the colonies. They chose Schlatter because of his knowledge of both Dutch and German.
Boehm and Schlatter, along with four other German Reformed ministers and elders from the various Pennsylvania congregations, met in Philadelphia to organize the coetus. The group formally adopted the Heidelberg Catechism as the doctrinal standard of their denomination. This synod remained under the supervision of the Holland synods until 1793. At the time of the separation, the coetus supervised more than 230 congregations and more than 15,000 communicants nationwide.
Further reading: Charles H. Gladfelter, Factors and People: German Lutheran and Reformed Churches in the Pennsylvania Field, 1717—1793, vol. 2: The History (Brei-nigsville: Pennsylvania German Society, 1981).
—Karen Guenther
World History
