page_title: Evangelical Lutheran Synodical Conference of North America
section_title: Organization
hierarchical_section_title: Evangelical Lutheran Synodical Conference of North America / History / Organization
caption_attribution_description: English: Copyright © 2006 Sulfur St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church, located near the historic Pabst Brewery complex in downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
context_page_description: The Evangelical Lutheran Synodical Conference of North America, often known simply as the Synodical Conference, was an association of Lutheran synods that professed a complete adherence to the Lutheran Confessions and doctrinal unity with each other. Founded in 1872, its membership fluctuated as various synods joined and left it. Due to doctrinal disagreements with the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, the Evangelical Lutheran Synod and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod left the conference in 1963. It was dissolved in 1967 and the other remaining member, the Synod of Evangelical Lutheran Churches, merged into the LCMS in 1971.
context_section_description: In October 1870 the Ohio Synod contacted the Illinois, Missouri, Norwegian, and Wisconsin synods to see if they would be interested in a union of Midwestern confessional synods. The synods (except for the Illinois Synod, whose president attended unofficially because that synod was still a member of the General Council) met on January 11–13, 1871, in Chicago to explore the formation of a federation that would be confessional in both profession and practice. A second meeting was held on November 14–16, 1871, in Fort Wayne, Indiana, with the Illinois and Minnesota synods, who had by this time both left the General Council, also in attendance.
  The Evangelical Lutheran Synodical Conference of North America was formally organized on July 10–16, 1872, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, by the Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Norwegian, Ohio, and Wisconsin synods as an expression of their unity of faith. The member synods agreed to work together in matters relating to Christian evangelism. Included in this was a sharing of clergy, sharing of educational facilities, and co-operation on evangelism and mission work.
  In 1876, the Synodical Conference recommended that all congregations using a particular language (e.g., German or Norwegian) be organized into state-specific synods. Therefore, the Evangelical Lutheran Concordia Synod of Virginia, which had joined the Synodical Conference that same year, merged in 1877 into the Ohio Synod. Likewise, the Illinois Synod merged into the Illinois District of the Missouri Synod in 1880.
  In 1878, the Wisconsin Synod withdrew its demand that the state synods had to be independent of the Missouri or Ohio Synods. The Missouri Synod needed to build a new seminary due to overcrowding at its current campus in St. Louis. Despite considerable planning to build a new joint Synodical Conference seminary near Chicago, the project failed because of hesitance of the part of the Wisconsin Synod and the inability of any of the other members besides Missouri to contribute financially.
  The 1878 convention voted in favor of establishing state synods. These state synods were to organize into two or three larger synods, one for the east (corresponding to the Ohio Synod), one for the southwest (corresponding to the Missouri Synod), and one for the northwest (which would include all congregations in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas and all parts west). This plan would solve the longstanding concern that if either the Missouri or Ohio synods were allowed to keep their identity, they would dominate the rest of the Synodical Conference, or, even worse, the Minnesota or Wisconsin synods would be forced to join one of them. This new organization did not apply to congregations speaking Norwegian, and English speaking congregations were to organize as separate district synods within one of the larger synods.
caption: The Synodical Conference was founded at St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a member at that time of the Wisconsin Synod.
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