Евангелиялық-Католик лютерандығының ерекшеліктері

Variant of Lutheran

The term Evangelical Catholic (from catholic meaning universal and evangelical meaning Gospel centered) is used in Lutheranism, alongside the terms Augsburg Catholic or Augustana Catholic, with those calling themselves Evangelical Catholic Lutherans or Lutherans of Evangelical Catholic churchmanship stressing the catholicity of historic Lutheranism in liturgy (such as the Mass), beliefs (such as the perpetual virginity of Mary), practices (such as genuflection), and doctrines (such as apostolic succession). Evangelical Catholics teach that Lutheranism at its core "is deeply and fundamentally catholic". The majority of Evangelical Catholic Lutheran clergy and parishes are members of mainstream Lutheran denominations. When the Lutherans presented the Augsburg Confession to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor in 1530, they believed it "showed that each article of faith and practice was true first of all to Holy Scripture, and then also to the teaching of the church fathers and the councils".</blockquote> In Lutheranism, the term Evangelical Catholic or Augsburg Catholic has a specific meaning. Lutheran Protestantism differs historically from most other kinds of Protestantism in that Lutheranism is the only historical Protestant denomination that confesses belief in three sacraments: regeneration in Holy Baptism, Confession as the sacrament of Absolution, and the Real Presence of Christ in Holy Eucharist. In Anglicanism and Methodism, two other Protestant traditions, there has also been a sacramentalism similar to that in orthodox Lutheranism, especially in the high church movement. The Book of Concord states, contrary to "Enthusiast" belief, that salvation can be received only through the means of grace: God's Word and sacraments. The Augsburg Confession stresses that "in doctrine and ceremonies nothing has been received on our part against Scripture or the Catholic Church." [[File:AugsburgConfessionArticle7OftheChurch. jpg|thumb|right|Woodcut of the Augsburg Confession, Article VII, "Of the Church". Lutherans of Evangelical Catholic churchmanship regard the Augsburg Confession as a thoroughly Catholic document. quotation|There can only be one true visible Church. Of this our Catechism speaks in Question 192: "Whom do we call the true visible Church?" Answer: "The whole number of those who have, teach and confess the entire doctrine of the Word of God in all its purity, and among whom the Sacraments are duly administered according to Christ's institution." That there can be but one true visible Church, and that, therefore, one is not just as good as another stands to reason because there is only one truth, one Bible, one Word of God. Evidently that Church which teaches this truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, is the true visible Church. Christ says John 8, 31. 32: "If ye continue in My Word, then are ye My disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Again Christ says Matt. 28, 20: "Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." Whatsoever He has commanded us, His Word, and nothing else, we should teach. And again, all things which He has commanded us we should teach. That, therefore is the true visible Church which does this. But that all visible Churches do not this is plain from the fact that they do not agree among themselves. If every Church would teach the whole truth and nothing but the truth as God has revealed it, there could be no difference. So, then, by calling other denominations Churches, we do not mean to say that one Church is just as good as another. Only that one is the true visible Church which teaches and confesses the entire doctrine of the Word of God in all its purity, and in whose midst the Sacraments are duly administered according to Christ's institution. Of all Churches, this can only be said of our Lutheran Church. New religious orders were established by Lutherans throughout the centuries such as Östanbäck Monastery, a Benedictine community in Sala, Sweden and Saint Augustine's House, a monastery in Michigan. Mother Basilea Schlink established the charismatic Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary in Darmstadt, which contains the motherhouse where the Lutheran nuns reside. The Order of Lutheran Franciscans is a religious institute affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Lutherans had different views regarding religious imagery than Reformed Christians. Lutherans proudly employed the use of the crucifix as it highlighted their high view of the theology of the Cross. Stories grew up of "indestructible" images of Luther that had survived fires by divine intervention. Thus, for Lutherans, "the Reformation renewed rather than removed the religious image." As such, "Lutheran places of worship contain images and sculptures not only of Christ but also of biblical and occasionally of other saints as well as prominent decorated pulpits due to the importance of preaching, stained glass, ornate furniture, magnificent examples of traditional and modern architecture, carved or otherwise embellished altar pieces, and liberal use of candles on the altar and elsewhere." Lutherans strongly defended their existing sacred art from a new wave of Reformed on Lutheran iconoclasm in the second half of the century, as Reformed rulers or city authorities attempted to impose their will on Lutheran populations in the "Second Reformation" of about 1560 1619. Against the Reformed, Lutherans exclaimed: "You black Calvinist, you give permission to smash our pictures and hack our crosses; we are going to smash you and your Calvinist priests in return". This campaign of Reformed iconoclasm "provoked reactive riots by Lutheran mobs" in Germany and "antagonized the neighbouring Eastern Orthodox" in the Baltic region.

thumb|A votive candle rack stands before an icon of Christ Pantocrator in a Lutheran parish church of the Church of Sweden in Skellefteå. In the 19th century, "Evangelical Catholicism" was seen as a vision for the Church of the future. The term was used by Lutherans such as Ernst Ludwig von Gerlach and Heinrich Leo within the post Prussian Union church in Germany who were inspired by the church of the Middle Ages, and by neo Lutheran Friedrich Julius Stahl. The term Evangelical Catholic is often used today instead of the term "High Church Lutheranism" because it is a theological term. It is comparable to the term "Anglo Catholic" within Anglicanism. Evangelical Catholic Lutheranism is inclusive of the theologically, biblically, and socially conservative ultra high church Lutheranism of those within the Confessional Lutheran movement who follow the late Arthur Carl Piepkorn, the Evangelical Catholic Orthodoxy of Gunnar Rosendal, the more theologically moderate high ecclesiology of Carl Braaten, the very liberal Evangelical Catholicity of Nathan Söderblom, or even the more liberal Catholicism of Friedrich Heiler, and the ecumenical vision of Hans Asmussen and Max Lackmann, as well as the strongly Roman Catholic oriented Anglo Lutheran Catholic Church and the more Eastern Orthodox oriented Evangelical Catholic Church. In Scandinavia, where High Church Lutheranism and Pietist Lutheranism has been highly influential, the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Diocese of Finland, Mission Province of the Church of Sweden, and the Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of Norway entered into schism with their national churches due to "the secularization of the national/state churches in their respective countries involving matters of both Christian doctrine and ethics”; these dioceses are in altar and pulpit fellowship with one another through the Communion of Nordic Lutheran Dioceses and are members of the confessional International Lutheran Council with their bishops having secured their lines of apostolic succession from other traditional Lutheran churches, such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Kenya. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada defines its doctrinal basis as such: "We derive our teachings from the Holy Scriptures and confess the three ecumenical creeds of the Christian church. We hold to orthodox catholic theology as enunciated in the ecumenical councils of the first five centuries of Christianity." Some small "Evangelical Catholic" church bodies include the Evangelical Catholic Church, Anglo Lutheran Catholic Church, Lutheran Church International, and the Lutheran Episcopal Communion. The Nordic Catholic Church in Norway has roots in High Church Lutheranism. However, most Evangelical Catholic Lutheran clergy and Evangelical Lutheran parishes are part of mainstream Lutheran denominations such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Evangelical Church in Germany, and the Church of Sweden. Various Roman Catholic leaders and theologians, such as Cardinal Kurt Koch have proposed the idea of Lutheran Ordinariates within the Catholic Church, which would allow Lutherans to join the Catholic Church and retain aspects of their liturgy and traditions. Lutherans of Evangelical Catholic churchmanship, however, have opposed conversion to Roman Catholicism, arguing that the "riches of the catholic tradition are already ours, and at our best we embrace that heritage". A Catholic organization called the Evangelical Catholic exists for the purpose of equipping Catholic ministries to be evangelical. In Greenville, South Carolina, a Catholic organization called the Center for Evangelical Catholicism exists for the purpose of spreading the "New Evangelization" program of the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization in Roman Catholic parishes and schools across the United States. Since the call to evangelization is so integral to the Catholic faith and solidly attested to in the ecumenical councils, the writings of the Church Fathers, and papal teaching, the late well known Father Richard John Neuhaus (1936 2009), (a former longtime Evangelical Lutheran pastor) looked to the day when the term 'evangelical Catholic' would be redundant when identifying as 'Catholic' would imply active evangelization so strongly that the addition of 'evangelical' would be unnecessary. As a group, they are often not disaggregated in social science research, though there have been recent calls to change this.

In recent years, the term Evangelical Catholic, has been adopted by high church elements of the Methodist and Reformed churches. This is especially apt among the Reformed, given that one of the older documented uses of the term is by John Williamson Nevin and Philip Schaff, during their efforts (from roughly 1841 forward) to repristinate the theology of the German Reformed Church in the United States. In 1849 the Mercersburg Review was founded as the organ of their "Mercersburg Theology". Beginning in 1851, William Augustus Mühlenberg, the Protestant Episcopal clergyman of Lutheran background, and father of the Ritualist movement in the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, also published a periodical called "The Evangelical Catholic." Muhlenberg's vision has influenced the Reformed Episcopal Church and some on the Free Church of England. Already earlier, there was an evangelical revival in the Roman Catholic Church in Germany, involving Boos, Gossner and Feneberg. This evangelical revivalist movement also spread to German Lutheranism. The Lusitanian Catholic Apostolic Evangelical Church in Portugal has its origins in the Old Catholic movement of the 19th century. Today it belongs to the Anglican Communion. In England, Ulric Vernon Herford (1866–1938), irregularly consecrated as Mar Jacobus, Bishop of Mercia & Middlesex, founded The Evangelical Catholic Communion. His succession line was brought to the United States in the 1960s and continues in the Syro Chaldean Church of North America. Some members of various Christian denominations may use the term Evangelical Catholic to indicate the fact that they are evangelical and maintain their catholicity. For example, Methodists and Presbyterians believe their denominations owe their origins to the Apostles and the early church, but do not claim descent from ancient church structures such as the episcopate. However, both of these churches hold that they are a part of the catholic (universal) church. According to Harper's New Monthly Magazine: As such, according to one viewpoint, for those who "belong to the Church," the term Methodist Catholic, or Presbyterian Catholic, or Baptist Catholic, is as proper as the term Roman Catholic.