H5: Salzburgers' emigration: "they went…singing hymns"; now in Georgia, a "reconciliation"?

     This continues from Part 4 (Table of Contents in Part 1) in a series that began with Walther's 1871 announcement of the republished "little book" by Matthias Hoe von Hoenegg, a book that gave instruction to south German Lutherans oppressed by Roman Catholics. — We now go deeper into the history of the Salzburger Emigration and follow them to two of their destinations: (1) East Prussia and (2) America: 

1) East Prussia

      My familiarity with this area has been minimal, but that increased as I learned of some events surrounding the story of the 20,000 re-settled Salzburg emigrant Lutherans who were given some available lands in north Germany by King Frederick William of Prussia. More details of their travels are available at this Wikipedia article, and at "The Red Brick Parsonage" here. (See the map at left for a general idea of their route.)

      The following is a translation from a 1965 East Prussian book (pp. 21-22) about the emigration which included "a rather vivid report on the arrival of a train of emigrants in the … Imperial City of Memmingen":

"... it seemed to me at the time as if I saw before me with the greatest emotion a vivid picture of the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. There was a mixture of stooping, trembling old men with white hair, strong men and young men in their prime: exhausted and weary old women with powerful women and beautiful young girls. …But anyone who thought that these homeless people, as they approached us, would have filled everything with lamentation and wailing and mourned their pitiful fate with cries that pierced the clouds and streams of tears, would be very much mistaken. It is true that the bystanders were moved by the sight, that tears rolled down their cheeks and their compassion was expressed in sighs. But they [the Emigrants] themselves resembled triumphants and were similar to the old Christian martyrs, of whom it is said that they went to their fate singing hymns. So these confessors of ours approached us singing, and singing they left the city again, driven out of their homeland, wandering through many dangers on rough paths in lands unknown to them, without knowing where they would one day find a home and a permanent abode."

Modern scholars tend to call reports such as the above "legend". A full English machine translation of this 51-page booklet is available here, German text here. (Or view immediately below) See pages 17-18 for a closer account of the Catholic actions leading up to the expulsion. This book was produced by Salzburger descendants, not by objectivist unbelieving scholars. I have added highlighting to certain portions of interest, for example page 47, of an association to preserve "the heritage of ancestors expelled from the Salzburg region because of their Lutheran faith". I have also highlighted some problematic points. [See the next blog post Part 6a about this.]

2) America (Georgia)

      At right is the same map as above, but showing where the Salzburg Emigrants split up at Nuremberg, a small portion going to America. The story of those who settled in Georgia is well reported by the Georgia Salzburger Society. — One then naturally wonders how the descendants are maintaining the steadfastness of their ancestors — the ones who loved the doctrines of Scripture? … the doctrines that Hoe von Hoenegg defended? One finds that there remains a Lutheran church in their settlement to this day, the Jerusalem Lutheran Church, "the oldest continuous worshiping Lutheran Church in America", established in 1733. But the congregation is associated with the ELCA, a synod which is Lutheran in name only. Surely the congregation was embarrassed when the ELCA came to an agreement with the Roman Catholic Church in 1999, with the so-called "Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification".  Then one learns of a "Reconciliation" initiated by a government, not a Catholic Church, official of Austria who commissioned a stone monument.  The monument was first displayed at the famous Christ Church (Lutheran) in Salzburg in May 1994 before it was shipped to Georgia. At that unveiling, it was stated that the "speakers celebrated the new gesture of reconciliation between Catholics and Protestants." The monument was placed in Salzburger Park in Savannah, Georgia.

Then in 1996, the State of Georgia placed an Historical Marker near the monument which states that the monument was "in memory of the Lutheran Protestants of Salzburg who were denied religious freedom and expelled from their homeland." — One wonders that the Governor of the State of Austria had to apply some pressure on the Catholic officials to participate… or did they participate? Did those at the commemoration sing Luther's hymn "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" (TLH 262) or "Lord, Keep Us Steadfast in Thy Word" (TLH 261) at this ceremony? (I have my doubts.) Or did they sing the Catholic "Salve Regina"? — 

     Do the Lutherans of the Jerusalem Lutheran Church not realize that the separation of Church and State in Austria only came about by the influence of America's "First Amendment", and that the Catholic Church did not initiate this so-called "reconciliation"? — Prof. Dr. Korey Maas stated in an essay in CTQ 2019, pp. 230-231 (emphasis mine):

If one of the central principles of liberalism, for example, is a religious liberty such as that codified in a separation of church and state, it must be admitted that this is not, contrary to [George] Weigel, a long-held or “basic” Catholic belief. It was a principle explicitly rejected as “absolutely false” and “a most pernicious error” by popes as recently as the twentieth century.

Dr. Maas exposes a statement made by a current prominent American Catholic spokesman (George Weigel), for what it is, a brazen falsehood.

===>>> Can the congregation in Georgia, "the oldest continuous worshiping Lutheran Church in America", in good conscience, sing the truly Lutheran hymns now as their ancestors sang them during their forced emigration?

       In the next Part 6a, we come back to the Salzburgers who settled in East Prussia, and find a connection with the Old Missouri Synod.

[The East Prussian book quoted above, in English, may be viewed directly in the window below:]