Doctor Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther - Altenburg, Missouri
Posted by: 
BruceS
N 37° 37.827 W 089° 35.144
16S E 271825 N 4167958
Plaque honoring early Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod leader.
Waymark Code: WMHZH5
Location: Missouri, United States
Date Posted: 08/31/2013
Views: 2
Text of plaque:
Doctor Carl Ferdinand
Wilhelm Walther
First President Of
The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod
1847-1850 1864-1878
Born: October 25, 1811
Langenchursdorf, Saxony, Germany
Died: May 7, 1887
St. Louis, Missouri
After having arrived with the Saxons immigrants in Perry County in 1839, Walther served as pastor of the newly founded congregations of Dresden and Johannisberg. He assumed leadership in the Saxon Settlements folling the dismissal of Bishop Martin Stephan. Walther was co-founder of the first Lutheran Seminary west of the Mississippi (Long College 1839). Walther took the affirmative and winning stand in the famous "Altenburg Debate" in April 1841 when things were near spiritual disaster in Perry County. He served as president of Concordia Seminary from 1847-1887. He also stared Der Lutheraner in 1844. The Walther League, organized in Buffalo, New Your, May 23, 1893, was named in his honor. It served as Synod's youth organization until 1968. Walther has been called the "Luther" of America and its greatest Christian theologian of the nineteenth century.