Landeskirchliches Archiv
Winterbeker Weg 51
24114 Kiel / Germany
Landeskirchliches Archiv
Außenstelle Schwerin
Am Dom 2
19055 Schwerin / Germany
Landeskirchliches Archiv
Außenstelle Greifswald
Karl-Marx-Platz 16
17489 Greifswald / Germany
(currently closed)
The main task of the Regional Church Archive of the Protestant-Lutheran Church in Northern Germany consists in archiving the documents of the leading church organs and administration of the North Church as well as of their services and institutions. It accommodates the archive inventories of the former Regional Churches Eutin, Hamburg, Lübeck, and Schleswig-Holstein that were merged into the North Elbian Church (Nordelbische Kirche, NEK). Documents from the NEK and the North Church are also being archived. Apart from that, the archive supports and advises the church districts with respect to archive maintenance in the parishes. Its headquarters are in Kiel, with two branch offices in Schwerin and Greifswald.
The territory of the North Church comprises the federal states Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, i.e. its territory ranges from the southern border of Denmark and Flensburg to Hamburg, from Glückstadt via Lübeck, Kiel, Schwerin, and Stralsund to the Polish border. A few parishes are also located in Brandenburg. The North Church includes three dioceses (Schleswig, Hamburg and Lübeck, Mecklenburg and Pomerania) with a total of 13 church districts. Overall, the North Church comprises almost 1,000 parishes.
In legal terms, church books belong to the respective parishes. The church districts decide together with the parishes whether church records are placed online. Almost all church books are either kept in the respective parishes or in the responsible church district archives. The Regional Church Archive itself stores only very few books; some church books from Farther Pomerania, the military church books from Schleswig-Holstein, and a portion of the church books from the Mecklenburg parishes.
The Regional Church Archive cooperates with two service providers digitizing the church books. It is intended to digitize all historic church records of the North Church within the next few years.
Currently, the church books of several hundred parishes from the following church districts are online: Farther Pomerania, Altholstein, Dithmarschen, Hamburg-West/Südholstein, Lübeck-Lauenburg, Mecklenburg, North Frisia, Ostholstein, Plön-Segeberg, Pomerania, Rantzau-Münsterdorf, Rendsburg-Eckernförde, Schleswig-Flensburg.
Apart from the books of the parishes, military church books are also available online.
The inventory is being supplemented little by little.
If you need a church book for your family research that is not (yet) available online with Archion, it is possible to conduct research on site in the regional church archives. You can find an overview of the regional church archives here: Kirchenkreisarchive - Landeskirchliches Archiv der Evangelisch-Lutherischen Kirche in Norddeutschland (archiv-nordkirche.de)