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Ecclesiastical and political authorities have remained intertwined throughout Protestant German history. Since religious structures depended on political structures, Protestant churches in Germany faced uncertainty whenever the political order changed. German Protestantism has always been territorial in the sense that church authority followed the territorial boundaries of the state. Therefore the church had to adapt its sphere of responsibility whenever political boundaries moved. More importantly, when political authority took new forms, the church negotiated new definitions of the duties of the state towards the church. When Napoleon conquered parts of Germany in the early 1800s, when the monarchy abdicated in 1918, when National Socialists took power in 1933, when East and West Germany were established after World War II, and when Germany was reunited in 1990, the organization and polity of the church changed as well.
During the 17th century, the principle of episcopalianism (Episkopalismus) governed the Protestant church, which meant that territorial rulers assumed responsibilities previously held by bishops. The prince was the secular ruler and the head of the church. By the end of the century, the prince's power had been slightly redefined so that church administration became part of territorial administration. Church governance was one duty among the prince's other duties, a philosophy known as territorialism (Territorialismus).
Wallmann considers the Prussian church the epitome of a state church, where the church's freedom was secondary to the prince's aims. King Friedrich Wilhelm I (r. 1713-1740) created a united Protestant church out of Lutheran and Reformed churches in his territory. He stilled dissent by ordering pastors not to preach against the government. His successor, Friedrich II (r. 1740-1786), treated pastors as members of the civil service: they were to plant mulberry trees, introduce potato cultivation, and read police ordinances from the pulpit.
The old order of German church-state relations ended in the first decade of the nineteenth century when Napoleon's victories led to the secularization of Catholic prince bishoprics in 1803 and the dissolution of the German Reich in 1806. Although some wanted to reconstitute the German church along Presbyterian lines, the state retained supervision over the churches. In a rare disclosure of his personal beliefs, Wallmann notes that he considers it tragic that 19th-century theologians and pastors missed the big social questions of their times—industrialization, urbanization, and rapid social change—and instead spent their time debating forms of church government.
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