Religion 1750 up to 1800

The state inheritance agreement of 1755 (“Landesgrundgesetzlicher Erbvergleich”) established the number of official Jewish families in Mecklenburg as 145. These “protected Jews” had to pay “protection money.”

The consecration of the only Protestant church was performed in Bützow in 1771 and, at the same time, the unification of the two communities there.

In 1795 the first Catholic Church in Mecklenburg was consecrated in 1795 after the Reformation.

The prevailing religious persuasion continued to be the Protestant state church.

Pastor Ludwig Gotthard Kosegarten settled in Altenkirchen on Rügen in 1792. He revives the old practice of waterside sermons, combining them with folksy admonishments. Crowds in the hundreds attend his services, and his fame spreads far beyond the island itself. He is later appointed professor of theology in Greifswald.

Catholic soldiers in Stralsund, Swedish Pomerania, are entitled to receive pastoral ministration from 1761 on. A Catholic chapel is erected in 1785.