Frederick Evangelical Lutheran Church, St. Thomas, Virgin Islands

Frederick Evangelical Lutheran Church was established in 1666, the same year that Erik Nelson Smith took formal possession of the island of St. Thomas in the name of the Danish West Indies Company. The original colonizing group included a Lutheran pastor, Kjeld Jensen from Slagelse. A few months after the settlers landed, Smith died, and the Lutheran pastor had to assume temporal, as well as spiritual leadership. The Lutheran church, during the early decades of the Danish colony, was closely allied with the development of the colony. The settlement was a venture of private enterprise by the stockholders of the Danish West Indies Company under a charter by the royal government. This charter included a provision that the Lutheran church (the state religion of Denmark) was to be maintained in the colony and the company was to select appropriate ministers to serve.

When St. Thomas became a crown colony through the purchase of the company by the state in 1754, the church was able to expand its role in community affairs rapidly. It was already operating schools for the Lutheran children and it later did so for slave children as well. It was a Lutheran pastor, the Rev. Hans Stoud, who first proposed that a hospital and school should be built on each island and saw his proposal realized on St. Thomas.

With regard to slavery, which was the expected labor force of a plantation economy, the slaves owned by Frederick church for parsonage use were freed by decision of the church wardens in 1845, and all slaves who had had not heretofore purchased or earned their freedom were granted unconditional emancipation by Governor Peter van Scholten in 1848. A similar proclamation was issued by president Lincoln for the United States in 1863.

Learn more of the history of  Frederick Evangelical Lutheran Church on the church’s website.