Sydow, Karl Leopold Adolf

Sydow, Karl Leopold Adolf a Protestant theologian of Germany, was born November 23, 1800, at Berlin. He studied theology under Schleiermacher; in 1828 was chaplain and tutor in the military school at Berlin, and in 1837 was called as court and military chaplain to Potsdam. In 1841 he was sent by Frederic William IV to England, to study there, in connection with other commissioners, the institutions for the religious care of the population of London and other large cities, and to report of his experience, and at the same time of the newly founded Anglo-Prussian bishopric at Jerusalem. This he did in his Antliche Berichte uber die in neuerer Zeit in England erwachte Thatigkeit fur die Vermehrung und Erweiterung der kirchlichen Anstalten (1845). As this mission brought him in connection with the queen of England and prince Albert, he was requested to prepare a paper on the movement then pending in Scotland for separating the Church from the State. This he did in his Beitrdge zur Characteristik der kerchlichen Dinge in Grossbritannien (1844-45, 2 parts), in which he freely advocated the separation. In 1846 he accepted a call as pastor of the Neue KIirche in Berlin, which position he occupied till the year 1876. In connection with Eltester, Thomas, and Pischon, he published the Monatsschrift, afterwards Zeitschrift fur die unirte Kirche, which, in 1854, was replaced by the Protestantische Kirchenzeitung. In 1848 he was a member of the Berlin National Assembly, and ten years later the theological faculty of Jena honored him with the doctorate of theology. When, in 1872, he delivered a lecture, in which he declared that Jesus was the natural son of Joseph and Mary, the Brandenburg consistory deposed him from his office. He died October 22, 1882. Besides the writings already mentioned, he published Sammlung geistlicher Vortrage (Berlin, 1838), and, in connection with F.A. Schulze, he translated and published fifteen volumes of Channing's works (1850-55). See Zuchold, Bibl. Theol. 2:1301. (B.P.)