Official seat, media centre, and starting point: Frankfurt am Main plays an important role in the history of the New Apostolic Church in several respects. Following is a look at the city in which the Chief Apostle will celebrate Pentecost this coming Sunday.
It all began with the first sealing not only on German ground but on the European continent. On 17 October 1847 in Frankfurt, Apostle Thomas Carlyle administered the gift of the Holy Spirit to a number of people, among them a certain Heinrich Wilhelm Josias Thiersch. Thiersch, a professor of theology, returned to Marburg and in 1848 established the first Catholic Apostolic congregation there outside of the British Isles. Marburg, located about an hour’s drive north of Frankfurt, also falls within the area looked after by District Apostle Bernd Koberstein, who is hosting this year’s Pentecost festivities.
Seat of the College of Apostles from 1922
Frankfurt is also well known as the seat of the publishing company of the New Apostolic Church. This was not always the case, however. Early on, publications for the German-speaking areas were produced in different locations in Germany. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the activities were finally pooled in Leipzig.
His successor, Apostle Georg Gustav Adolf Ruff, received support from a young Bishop in 1905 who would contribute to Church history as hardly any other leading minister of the New Apostolic Church since: Johann Gottfried Bischoff. None of his predecessors or successors carried the ministry of Chief Apostle longer than he: almost thirty years, from 1930 to 1960.
But Frankfurt was the official seat of the Church long before Johann Gottfried Bischoff became Chief Apostle: with its founding in 1922, the College of Apostles of the New Apostolic Church—an official body comprising the Apostles and the Chief Apostle—decided on Frankfurt am Main as its official seat.
Publishing activities centralized in Frankfurt
Frankfurt is also well known as the seat of the publishing company of the New Apostolic Church. This was not always the case, however. Early on, publications for the German-speaking areas were produced in different locations in Germany. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the activities were finally pooled in Leipzig.
Starting in the late 1920s, the focus of the Church’s publishing activities began to shift to Frankfurt, where the Wächterstimme aus Zion (New Apostolic Review) was printed, starting in 1925. This was done in a printing shop run by Friedrich Bischoff. In 1931 all publishing activities were officially taken over by the publishing and printing company in Frankfurt am Main, which later came to be known as Bischoff Verlag.
Today the publishing company produces magazines in the German language such as Unsere Familie, Wir Kinder, and spirit, as well as books, CDs, and videos. The online news magazine nac.today and the Church’s member magazine community are also produced at the premises in Frankfurt. And, finally, the company provides satellite broadcasts of divine services, such as on Sunday of the Pentecost service.
Personalities in the history of the New Apostolic Church in Frankfurt (looking into the camera, from the left): Chief Apostle Johann Gottfried Bischoff, District Apostle Gottfried Rockenfelder, and the publisher Friedrich Bischoff.