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Photograph of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, MO, 1876
1media/nmmn_00143.jpg2024-06-03T17:29:16+00:00Norwegian Synod, 1853-191711plain2024-10-18T21:30:57+00:00The Norwegian Synod was founded in 1853 in Koshkonong and Luther Valley, Wisconsin – near the Jefferson Prairie Settlement. The Norwegian Synod was founded by H.A. Preus, Jakob Aal Ottesen, U.V. Koren, Bernt J. Muus, and Laur Larsen – all of who emigrated in the 1850s and received formal training in Norway.
The Norwegian Synod often thought of itself as a daughter of the Church of Norway. One of the prevailing views of the Norwegian Synod was that theologians who did not follow the old beliefs of the Church of Norway were heretics. The view on lay preaching differentiated them from the Eielsen Synod. They thought pastors needed to be formally educated.
Education at the Missouri Synod Seminary
With the need to educate pastors, they worked with the Missouri Synod (German Lutheran Synod) to have their pastors educated at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis. The alliance between these two groups strengthened the conservative views of the Norwegian Synod. Finally, in 1876 a seminary was established in Madison, Wisconsin, called Luther Seminary. Later, this moved to St. Paul, Minnesota where it is still located.
Establishing Churches
Bernt J. Muus, the first pastor of Holden Lutheran Church in Kenyon, Minnesota, was influential in starting various churches throughout southern Minnesota and was the catalyst for initiating the funding for St. Olaf College. In 1875, under the leadership of Thorbjorn N. Mohn, St. Olaf College was founded – Herman Amberg Preus, the president of the Norwegian Synod at the time, laid the foundation stone for the school.
In the 1880s, the conversations around predestination rose in the Norwegian Synod. A split came in 1887 when a new synod was formed called the Anti-Missourian Brotherhood. They were named as such because they disagreed with the predestination view of the Missouri Synod. By 1917, a portion of the Norwegian Synod merged into the Norwegian Lutheran Church of America and the other portion formed the Evangelical Lutheran Synod.
