Wilhelm Stählin

Who was Wilhelm Stählin?

Wilhelm Stählin was a German Lutheran theologian, bishop, preacher and one of the major initiators of the Liturgical Movement in German Protestantism in the 20th Century.

After completing his school education in Augsburg Stählin began studying theology in 1901 in Erlangen, Rostock and Berlin. In 1905 he completed this theological examinations and served afterwards as a vicar in Bavaria. After a trip to England in 1908 Stählin became a parish pastor in Egloffstein and married. In 1913 he received his doctorate at the University of Marburg. His dissertation dealt with the problem of biblical metaphors. In 1914 he founded the "Gesellschaft für Religionspsychologie" and published the "Archive for Religious Psychology". At the same time he established contact with the German Youth Movement of that time. He was a voluntary military chaplain in the German army from 1914 until 1916. In 1917 he became a parish pastor in Nürnberg. After World War I he intensified his contact to the German youth movement. In 1923 he was one of the initiators of the Berneuchen Movement and in 1931 of the affiliated St. Michael's Brotherhood. This movement saw its goal in a liturgical renewal of Protestantism. In 1926 Stählin became a professor for practical theology at the Westphalian Wilhelms-Universität in Münster.