Current Research in Process - Canadian Lutherans UN LWF WCC

Passavant Learns About Nova Scotia Lutherans

• In 1846 William Passavant was on his way to the inaugural meeting of the first General Council of the Evangelical Alliance in London when his ship hit rocks off the coast of Newfoundland and he was way-laid for several days in Halifax, Nova Scotia (NS). There Passavant met descendants of the Lutherans who settled in Canada in 1749. He visited their historic "Little Dutch Church," (Little Deutsch Church). And he heard of the labours of Rev. Charles Cossman, the lone Lutheran pastor to the province - located at Lunenburg.
•  Of the original 1453 Lutherans who settled in Lunenburg County, 451 were French-language speakers relocating from Montbeliard, France.  While some of the settlers were from Holland, most had moved from the mountain Palatinate where Germany, France and Switzerland connect. All these were called "Foreign Protestants." See Cronmiller, Ch. 4 & 5, A History of the Lutheran Church in Canada, for more details. 

Much of the diversity within North American continental Lutheranism today relates to waves of immigration. In addition to the standard continental waves of European settlement, Canadian Lutheranism has uniquely been impacted by French-speaking Protestantism and the British-Anglican colonial milieu.

Era of World Conferences Begins

Once in London in 1846, Passavant helped his more senior leader Samuel Simon Schmucker to organize the World Evangelical Alliance. The inaugural conference was significantly British, yet brought together 800 Protestant delegates from 50 denominations across Europe and America.

• Thereafter Passavant went on to Kaiserwerth to meet the Fliedners and learn of their Deaconess ministries.  Upon his return to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Passavant then worked to send Rev. W. W. Bowers to support Rev. Charles Cossman in ministry at Lunenburg County. 
• When Cossman arrived in Lunenburg in 1835 - there were 3000 Lutherans in the County and no Lutheran clergy in Nova Scotia. Cossman ( from Sachsenberg) and Bowers (from Pennsylvania) established a network of Word and Sacrament ministries across the County.
• In 1867  The General Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in North America was formed with Passavant aligning with his colleague Gottlieb Bassler against Schmucker and the continental Lutheran General Synod.
• In 1876 the Lunenburg County Churches joined together as the Nova Scotia Conference of the Pittsburg Synod of the General Council.
• In 1908 The "American branch" of the Evangelical Alliance was superseded by the Federal Council of Churches. 
• In 1910 the World Missionary Conference held in Edinburgh launched a new movement in ecumenism with significant energy was being provided by student and laity movements. See https://archive.org/details/wccfops1.002 
• The Anglican/Episcopal Church proposed a World Conference on Faith and Order at this time "to build ecumenical consensus and Christian unity. 
• in 1911 The North American General Council agreed to permit the creation of the first Lutheran seminary in Canada "for further extension of the Lutheran Church in Ontario and the Western Provinces." The General Council was the uniting body to four geographical Lutheran synods in Canada (the  Nova Scotia, Canada, Central Canada and Manitoba and Other Provinces synods). Nils Willison was among the first four students of the Evangelical Lutheran Seminary of Canada proposed tot he General Council by the Central Canada Synod (English-speaking) and the Canada Synod  (Synode von Canada , erman-speaking) Lutherans.  
• Willison was Swedish by birth, then raised in a Norwegian Lutheran congregation in Canada. He taught in English-speaking schools in Ontario and attended the University of Toronto. He graduated from the joint-language Evangelical Lutheran Seminary of Canada and was pastor to an English-language congregation between Toronto and his family home in the Muskokas.