Talk:Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Hanover

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Translation issues[edit]

I just took the liberty of correcting a bunch of minor and some major translation issues (though I don't think I nearly got them all yet).

I also changed "synod" back to the German term "Synode" because "synod" is used in a very different sense in American churches at least (the ELCA for instance consists of 65 or so "synods", that is, districts).

For some parts of the text it would be helpful to know where they originally came from. I had a hard time even understanding the "Bischofsrat" part for instance, and there is no such text on the German Wiki site. And in order to correct (or re-translate) something, it does help to have a faint idea what they are trying to say... Another sentence I simply don't understand at all is this one: "The Bishop is chairman of the College in the church office (or less the "government" of the Church)". What college? And what "less"? It would be very helpful to have the (supposedly) original German text here in order to know what is meant.

I also changed the title "National Church Office" to "Church Office". I have no idea why anyone would translate "Landeskirchenamt" to "National church office". It's the same "Landes-" as in "state church" which has been more knowledgably explained at the beginning of the article. And to call the "Landeskirchenamt" the "supreme authority within the church" - well, that's either grossly wrong or a very sarcastic Freudian slip.

I am completely at loss about the translation of "Oberkirchenrat". "Legal Higher Regional councils of churches" sounds so much like Babelfish that it makes me cringe. I am also very doubtful about the translations of the other titles. To sum things up, I am almost inclined to delete that whole part about the "National (or otherwise) Church Office".

Also, I would like to know what's the proper possessive form of "Hanover" in English. In the article, we currently have "Hanoveran" and "Hanoverian". Do either of those actually exist? (In German, the possessive depends on if you are talking about the people or the horses... ;-) )

Some more terms I am more than doubtful about are "Diakonia" and "Diaconate". Neither of those terms are correct translations of the German "Diakonie". As far as I know, there is no direct translation, so we might better leave the German term untranslated and describe what it is about.

Obviously, a lot of work remains to be done on this article... --Anna (talk) 22:06, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]


I have just looked at the history of this article and noticed that I have made some changes that used to be that way some time ago. For instance the "House of Church Offices" which I renamed "House of Church Services" (seems a more appropriate translation for "Haus kirchlicher Dienste" to me): used to be that way until some IP changed it here for no apparent reason. If there is a reason for this change, I'd be interested to hear about it.

User JMS123 has obviously been contributing on a regular basis and not without knowledge of the subject, which is of course to be greatly appreciated. However, there have been some changes made by this user which just make me cringe, and I am not talking about grammatical errors here. I have just deleted a sentence naming examples for the services "House of Church Office" provides for the "countrypastors (eg: National Social pastor, ...)". I have no idea what he or she was trying to say, but if this is not purposely meant as vandalism, this user really should reconsider if his or her level of English is up to contributing to the English Wikipedia without doing more damage than good.

I would also recommend keeping an eye on IP 91.43.101.204. Why would anyone do something like change the spelling of "spiritual" to "Spirtuell"?

--Anna (talk) 23:19, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Name[edit]

Evangelical does not mean evangelisch but evangelikal. This is explained well in Protestant Church in Germany, with an article name to match. I suggest to do the same here: careful wording and move. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:56, 19 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And should not be written Land instead of State? The organisation is not run by the german (or Lower Saxony) state.--Klaaschwotzer (talk) 16:07, 23 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
A little disingenuous, Gerda, as the article you've linked is entitled "Evangelical Church in Germany" and the looong discussions there on the subject conclude it should stay that way.
Anyway, we also have a Catholic church which is not universal, a Church of Scientology which isn't a church, and a Church of Christian Scientists which is neither Christian nor scientific. In Britain we have an established Church of England, run by bishops, and an established Church of Scotland, which wouldn't touch bishops with a barge-pole. So I don't think English-speakers are so naïve as to be misled by a name. Moonraker12 (talk) 10:11, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
My simple genius: the article was moved after I wrote the above. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:43, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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Capitalization[edit]

Can someone please explain the capitalization rules by which this thing is called "House of church Services"?

Please, either make it a proper name or title - "House of Church Services" - or just a normal phrase "House of church services". I don't see any point whatsoever in capitalizing "Services" but not "church". --87.150.2.8 (talk) 21:27, 11 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

How to handle untranslatable terms?[edit]

I have already turned the "land superintendent" which does not make any sense at all back into the proper title "Landessuperintendent". If anything, he or she might be referred to as a regional bishop, which is a term that is increasingly being used within the Church of Hanover in German too.

Another such issue is the "deacon". The office of "Diakon" or "Diakonin" in the German protestant churches really does not have much to do with what WP has to offer under deacon. Most Diakone work in the youth ministry of the congregations, some work with the elderly or in pastoral clinical counseling, some in other areas altogether. I really have no idea how to sum this up into one term in English, but "deacon" certainly is misleading to say the least. --91.34.37.42 (talk) 10:51, 12 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Goodness, there's more of that. I just changed a ton of "land superintendents" into regional bishops. "Land superintendent" is just blatant nonsense.
Also, the head bishop of Hannover certainly is no "regional bishop". He is THE bishop of this church; there is no other. It is a common misconception to think of the Evangelical Church of Germany (EKD) as the church body and of the member churches only as "regions". This is wrong: THEY are the church bodies, and the EKD is only a kind of federation of these independent churches. --91.34.37.42 (talk) 11:11, 12 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Here's another one: "Religion Pedagogical Institute" sounds simply awful. What would you call an institute where pastors-to-be are being taught teaching skills, or where religion teachers can go for continuing education?
Would be nice if someone could come up with a better translation than the word-by-word one for "Religionspädagogisches Institut".--91.34.33.220 (talk) 13:54, 13 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the heroic efforts. It all begins with the very title, because the church has nothing to do with evangelicalism, - I think Protestant would be better. However, I am told that - at least for the EKD - the Germans make that translation nonsense themselves. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:21, 13 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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