A sacramental movement for religious renewal, founded in 1922 with Steiner's guidance, centered on the Act of Consecration of Man and seven renewed sacraments.
The Christian Community (Die Christengemeinschaft) is the sacramental movement founded on 16 September 1922 in Dornach by Friedrich Rittelmeyer and a circle of theology students working with Rudolf Steiner. Born out of the four priest-courses given between 1921 and 1924, it is a distinct church for religious renewal, holding seven renewed sacraments and the Act of Consecration of Man at its center.
In Steiner's Own Words
Do not forget that what you can achieve during the sacrifice of the Mass always draws your soul into the spiritual world, that your soul is drawn into the scene of the spiritual world, that you are not just saying something with your mouth and doing something with your hands, but that you are standing within the spiritual world. You must be aware of this when you consider the concept of worship. That means you must be very clear in your own mind that in the act of worship you are performing something that is a reality, and that when you speak as the celebrant, you are also speaking as a messenger from other worlds.
What it Means Today
The Christian Community sits in an exact and often misunderstood position. It is not a branch of the Anthroposophical Society, and it is not a reform of Roman Catholic or Protestant ecclesiology. It is a separate sacramental church that Steiner helped a group of Lutheran theology students and pastors found in the autumn of 1922, after they came to him asking how Christian sacramental life might be carried into the present age. The four lecture cycles he gave them between 1921 and 1924, collected as GA 343 through GA 346, are the textual foundation. The first Act of Consecration of Man was celebrated by Friedrich Rittelmeyer in Dornach on 16 September 1922, and the community took shape around that act.
Seen through the lens of esoteric Christianity, the Christian Community's claim is precise. It does not propose a new doctrine or a new mysticism. It celebrates seven sacraments in renewed liturgical language: Baptism, Confirmation, the Act of Consecration of Man (its form of Communion), Sacramental Consultation (its form of Penance), Marriage, the Last Anointing, and Ordination. From the founding it ordained women alongside men, decades before most Western churches would. Each sacrament works at the threshold where speech becomes priestly speech, where the Word of John's prologue addresses bread, wine, water, oil, and the human person standing in the room. For a reader exploring anthroposophy, the Christian Community is the place where the Christ Impulse meets the altar, while anthroposophy itself remains a path of knowledge open to anyone of any faith or none. The Christian Community was co-founded with Steiner by Friedrich Rittelmeyer, a Lutheran pastor who became the movement's first Erzoberlenker (1922-1938). The central sacrament of The Christian Community is the Act of Consecration of Man (Menschenweihehandlung), the Eucharistic celebration given by Steiner to the founding priests in September 1922.
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