[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Lutheran vs. Reformed Lutheran

[Robin Grube]

Otto's comments were interesting. Besides the Volynia/Kiev Germans in my
family, I am also researching Germans from what is present-day Croatia.
There, the majority of the Germans were Roman Catholics. The few that were
what Americans call Lutheran Protestants were called Augsberg Evangelische.
To them, Reformed was sometimes included in Catholic parish records, if the
spouse was Catholic. In that case, they were called of the "Helvetica
confession", which of course refers to the Swiss Reformationist Calvin. So I
believe this agrees with Otto's comments.I found this term in records of the
1830s.

In the U.S., my husband's family are Pennsylvania Germans, and the records
I've found going back to the 1730s, refer to distinct groups called Lutheran
and Reformed.Sometimes they met at the same church, but with different
ministers/pastors and different services. After a time, some churches became
known as Union, because the 2 congregations joined each other. There are
probably slight variations from town to town that had Germans  of mixed
religious beliefs.  Robin Grube