independent Lutheran church in Oldenburg, Ger. Pastors who had accepted the Lutheran faith were established in Oldenburg during the Protestant Reformation in Germany, and in 1573 an order for church government and the Lutheran confessions were accepted for the church. Until the German Republic was established after the end of World War I (1918), the church was governed by the secular head of state. After 1918 it became independent of the state, and the system of church government was reorganized. During the Nazi period (1933–45) the church attempted to resist the efforts of the secular government to control it, and after the end of World War II it experienced a period of renewal.

The head of the church is the bishop. Congregations belong to districts, each of which is headed by a superintendent. The church is a member of the Lutheran World Federation and of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), a federation of Lutheran, Reformed, and United (Lutheran and Reformed) territorial churches; but it did not become part of the United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany, a union of Lutheran territorial churches (1948).