For six years he was a Chief Apostle without being a Chief Apostle: one hundred years ago on 14 December, Johann Gottfried Bischoff was ordained to a ministry that he would only come to exercise later on. Following is the background story.
“Receive the Chief Apostle ministry and with it, the ministerial power and ministerial Spirit of Jesus, the Living and Resurrected One, so that you may carry out this work!” It was with these words that Chief Apostle Hermann Niehaus ordained his successor on 14 December 1924 in Frankfurt. But that this successor should be none other than Johann Gottfried Bischoff was anything but a sure thing.
Two close confidants
For one thing, there was District Apostle Carl August Brückner (Saxony, Thuringia, Silesia), who formed a veritable dream team with Chief Apostle Niehaus in the 1900s and early 1910s. A Swiss colleague in ministry of the time described him as follows: “Brückner presented well, he was well educated, and he quickly became the foremost among the Apostles. He was the secretary, his word counted for something, and people already regarded him as the successor apparent.”
And then there was also District Apostle Johannes Hendrik van Oosbree (Netherlands), likewise a close collaborator of the Chief Apostle. Niehaus regarded him as his helper in the countries outside of Germany. It was from him that Niehaus had adopted the idea of reforming the Holy Communion practice through the use of wafers sprinkled with wine. And the Chief Apostle would often even spend his holidays with Apostle van Oosbree—at times even enjoying canoe trips together.
A double no
But the dream team soon fell apart: Apostle Brückner was practically bursting with new and unorthodox ideas about how to transform the Church. And the Chief Apostle, on the other hand, was intent on keeping calm and maintaining stability after the turbulent period following the First World War. As time passed, the diverging ideas of companions accelerated the drifting apart to the point of outright confrontation.
And what about Apostle van Oosbree? He simply didn’t want the job—by his own admission. Nevertheless, the Chief Apostle had a decision to make. “For years, a number of Apostles have expressed the wish that I should name my successor,” he wrote in a circular to all congregational rectors. After all, “If I were to be taken away, like Father Krebs , without having named a successor, what would happen then?”
Looking for a twofold confirmation
So it was that the Church leader came to the following decision: “I will go slowly and pay attention to the indications of the Lord”—namely in the form of visions, prophecies, and dreams. “For eight years,” he wrote, “all indications have pointed to Apostle Bischoff.” He went on to state that he would also pay attention to “which rod begins to sprout before the other rods,” in reference to Aaron’s election as high priest. The objective here was to see which of the Apostles’ work would bear the richest fruit.
But the Church leader also wanted to verify these spiritual impulses: “It is for this reason that I wrote to all the Apostles and asked them to tell me which of the Apostles they could envision as my assistant. All the Apostles, with the exception of Brückner and Ecke—the latter was ill—have pointed to Apostle Bischoff. Now I have received a twofold confirmation.”
No longer a helper
At the time, Bielefeld—the hometown of the Chief Apostle—would occasionally play host to special divine services that were regarded as national celebrations. And it was at one such divine service on 10 October 1920 that Johann Gottfried Bischoff was called to be a Chief Apostle Helper.
The question of successorship was not yet fully settled, however: “My investiture did not mean that the Apostles were bound to me,” explained Bischoff some 30 years later. After all, Niehaus “had not invested me as their helper, but as his. The relationship between the Apostles and the Chief Apostle remained completely unaffected by this change.”
And more still: according to documents from the Netherlands, Niehaus was said to have repeatedly offered Apostle van Oosbree the successorship. Beyond that, Apostle Brückner had also considered him a candidate, and in October 1920, the Chief Apostle had even expressly called him a great help for the work abroad. The only thing missing was the Apostle’s consent.
The beginning of a long story
But the situation was quite different on 14 December 1924, when the Chief Apostle definitively settled the question of his successorship. On this occasion, Chief Apostle Niehaus simply asked: “When I am no longer able to do so, will you continue the work of God—in the same way I have always endeavoured to work? That is, not to demand anything that you would not do yourself, to be a brother to the ministers in the love of Christ, and to always be a help to the ministers in all things, first to the Apostles and then to all who believe in Jesus through their word? Is it your desire to take this burden upon yourself?”
“Yes, with God’s help!” answered Apostle Bischoff. However, he did not begin to serve as Chief Apostle until 1930, after Niehaus had an accident from which he never fully recovered. Until then, Bischoff would have had the necessary ministerial authority, but not the ministerial mandate—as our present teaching states—to serve as Church leader.
And the rest is history.
Photo: Chief Apostle Hermann Niehaus (front) with Apostles Johann Gottfried Bischoff and Johannes Hendrik van Oosbree (photo coloured subsequently).