Eduard Mierau is the actual founding father of the New Apostolic Church in the United States, which today counts around 170 congregations. He died 100 years ago this Saturday.
Apostle Mierau from North America almost met an untimely end, but he was “miraculously saved from a great misfortune”, the Neuapostolische Rundschau (New Apostolic Review) reported in 1912. What had happened to the man who had more than revived the apostolic community in North America?
Early beginnings and setbacks
Friedrich Eduard Mierau was born on 9 January 1869 near Tilsit, East Prussia (modern Kaliningrad). He joined the apostolic movement in Westphalia at a young age and served as an Evangelist in Elberfeld and the surrounding area from 1890.
The seed for the apostolic movement in the United States was planted in the 1870s and 1880s. Heinrich Ferdinand Hoppe was the first Apostle who was active in North America. When he saw no visible success in his work, he resigned from the Apostle ministry and left the Church, as is reported in a 1983 edition of the Our Family magazine. He was succeeded by a Priest Kohlhage, who also chose to go his own way.
America needs an Apostle
As a temporary measure, Chief Apostle Krebs sent the two Priests Hoekstra and Ermonis to continue the work at the end of the 1890s. Apostle Gustav Ruff from Germany was sent across the Atlantic from time to time to perform sealings.
Finally, in 1901, all the Apostles gathered in Hamburg (Germany) to pray together for an Apostle. “Evangelist Mierau was chosen as an Apostle, and his election was powerfully confirmed by the Holy Spirit,” it says in the book Alte und Neue Wege (Old and New Ways).
Birth of the Regional Church
Apostle Mierau had already visited America a year earlier and settled with his family in New York in April 1901. With his vision that “the work of God in North America will grow and stretch from sea to shining sea” he set to work. Shortly afterwards, the first members were sealed. Under the pioneer’s leadership, the work of God visibly flourished, resulting in around 30 congregations in New York, Buffalo, Brooklyn, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Milwaukee, among others.
Towards the end of 1909, the Apostle acquired the first church building in Brooklyn, where brothers and sisters gathered for divine services until 1924. The highlight of that year was the first visit of a Chief Apostle to the American continent. Chief Apostle Niehaus visited all the congregations in the United States and “kindled a flame in the hearts of the faithful that would ignite an ever-expanding spiritual fire”.
The protective hand of God
In 1910, Apostle Mierau moved from New York to Detroit because from there he would be able to reach all the congregations more easily and serve them better. The Apostle, accompanied by the Priest from Detroit, was scheduled to take the evening train to his new city. The luggage had already been loaded, the train set off, and then it crashed. Forty passengers died and over sixty were seriously injured.
News of the train crash spread like wildfire, also to Detroit. Relatives and the congregation were in a state of panic. What had happened to their Apostle? Apostle Mierau and his companion had boarded another train and got off in Buffalo to respond to an invitation from Elder Erb. They learned about the accident through a dispatch and reassured the worried brothers and sisters in Detroit: “The luggage was on the ill-fated train, but death could not catch the Apostle.”
The foundation is laid
Apostle Mierau served as an Apostle for nearly a quarter of a century before retiring due to illness. He laid the foundations for the New Apostolic Church in North America and brought the scattered members together under one roof. “He was a wonderful instrument in God’s hand, a convincing and able minister of the Spirit who won many souls for Christ,” Apostle John W. Fendt wrote in 1983.