#55: The Lutheran Church of the Ascension
“Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.”
—Martin Luther
The Lutheran Church of the Ascension
In 1734, the ‘Salzburgers’ arrived off Savannah’s shores and personally met by Georgia Colony Founder James Oglethorpe. Before sailing for Georgia, this group of German-speaking Protestant Lutherans had been expelled from Salzburg’s Catholic principality of Bavaria, in present-day Austria.
The group was removed from its homeland by the Edict of Expulsion to either recant their faith or be expelled, issued in 1731 by Count Leopold Anton von Firmian, Salzburg’s Prince-Archbishop.
Initially, many of the Lutherans escaped to England and asked King George II for assistance. At the time, James Oglethorpe had just traveled back to England in 1734, after founding the Georgia Colony the prior year. Oglethorpe was accompanied to England by his friend Tomochichi, the Yamacraw Chief.
The two men sailed to England and met with the Georgia Trustees to sign treaties formalizing the British Colony in Georgia. Tomochichi enjoyed an audience with the English King and Queen.
Hundreds of Salzburgers would soon travel to Georgia at the invitation of King George II, a fellow Lutheran, with Oglethorpe’s encouragement and the patronage of the Georgia Colony Trustees.
Johann Martin Boltzius led the first group of Salzburger-immigrants to Savannah. Oglethorpe offered land to settle up-river about 20-miles north of Savannah, where they founded a community named Ebenezer. A conflict between Boltzius and Oglethorpe over the initial location’s suitability would follow, and the town was soon after moved to more fertile land in 1736.
Boltzius was fiercely anti-slavery and would have serious conflicts with the pro-slavery colonialists. He claimed slavery unnecessary to be a successful Georgia planter. The secret of success in Georgia, he said, was to do no work during its hottest hours between 10:00 in the morning and 2:00 in the afternoon!
The Salzburgers freely practiced their Lutheran traditions in Ebenezer, while other members soon conducted regular church services in Savannah. The first Lutheran Congregation in Savannah was formed in 1741, only eight years after Oglethorpe founded the Georgia Colony. They initially named themselves: The Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Ascension.
The Congregation purchased a tract of land on Wright Square in 1771. Several wooden structures and a single-story brick church preceded the current building I have painted here en Plein air.
Governor Edward Telfair granted the Congregation its initial charter in 1790.
Frequently modified over the years and finally completed in the late-1870s, the building was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966 by the U.S. Department of the Interior. The Lutheran Church of the Ascension will celebrate its 280th Anniversary in Savannah in 2021.
If you have the opportunity, be sure to step inside the church to see the spectacular Austrian stained-glass window in its sanctuary. The window, installed in 1878, beautifully depicts the Ascension of Christ.
There are, as well, several breath-taking stained-glass windows on each side of the church building.
Painting in progress