The Evangelical Church in the Rhineland is the second largest German state church. Its territory covers the former Prussian Rhine Province and thus today includes parts of four federal states. In 1853, the provincial synod decided to establish a provincial church archive.

The archive was located in Koblenz at the seat of the consistory until 1928, when it was moved to Bonn. In 1951, it was moved to Düsseldorf to the office building of the Regional Church Office. The Protestant Archive Office Koblenz, founded in 1953 as a branch archive, moved into its own rooms in the Sankt Martin monastery in Boppard in 1996 and is responsible for archive care in the southern part of the regional church.

At its two locations, the Landeskirchliche Archiv has about 800 holdings with a total volume of about 9,000 linear meters. Most of the documents are from the provincial and regional church administration since 1815, but the archives of numerous Protestant parishes, church districts and church associations are also kept as deposits. Some of the documents date back to pre-Reformation times.

Bequests of pastors, university professors and individual presidents expand the documentation profile, as do the archives of the Kirchliche Hochschule Wuppertal or the important bequest of the photographer Hans Lachmann. Research specifically on Rhenish church history is facilitated by the 60,000-volume archive library. Genealogists will find what they are looking for in the Boppard branch archive, where about 6,000 church records from the entire area of the regional church are centralized.

The holdings of the Archive of the Evangelical Church in Rheinland Archivportal-D.

Contact

Archive of the Evangelical Church in Rheinland
Hans-Böckler-Straße 7 / D - 40476 Düsseldorf

Telefon: 0211/4562-225

Mail: archiv [at] ekir.de
Homepage: www.archiv-ekir.de
Archivblog: https://blog.archiv.ekir.de/