RECORDS OF
ST. PAUL LUTHERAN CHURCH
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA

About the records:
      The earliest original records, 1840-1844, are held in the Manuscript Department of the Tulane University Library. They are identified as being the records of the “German Lutheran Church (1838-1844), Collection 119.” These baptism and death records were transcribed and translated by Ms. Erin Greenwald and Mr. Dietmar Felber in August 2000, and are made available here through the courtesy of the Special Collections Department of the Howard Tilton Memorial Library at Tulane University.
     The original records, from 1844 to 1947, were donated by the congregation to the Concordia Historical Institute (CHI) in St. Louis, Missouri. CHI is the Department of Archives and History of The Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod. The records include the baptism, marriage, death, and confirmation records.
     Years ago, all of these records were microfilmed by the Family History Library of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Wegener cousins Kevin Bozant and Norman Hellmers had these microfilms scanned. It is these digital images that are on this website.

Information about the history of the church can be found in the following:
     (1) Articles in New Orleans Genesis (vol 17, no 65, p 114; vol 17, no 66, p 219)
     (2) Histories of the church published on various anniversaries:
          50th Kurzgefaßte Geschichte der deutschen Evangelisch-Lutherischen St. Paulus Gemeinde U. A. C. zu New Orleans, La. [A Brief History of the German Evangelical-Lutheran St. Paul Congregation U. A. C. of New Orleans, La.] (1890)
          80th Directory of the St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church (1920)
          100th 100 Years with St. Paul’s, 1840-1940 (1940)
          135th Founded on the Firm Foundation (1975)
          150th Port & Burgundy: a pictorial history published in commemoration of the sesquincentennial of Saint Paul Lutheran Church (1990)
      Digital copies of some of these histories can be found on this website.

The present church building was constructed in 1889, and is a contributing structure in the Faubourg Marigny Historic District, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Other names of the church include:
     German Orthodox Evangelical Congregation of New Orleans and Lafayette (1842)
     German Evangelical Orthodox Church in New Orleans (1845)
     First German Evangelical Lutheran Congregation of New Orleans (1858)
     German Evangelical Lutheran St. Paul’s Congregation (1872)
     Evangelical Lutheran St. Paul’s Congregation, U. A. C., of New Orleans, Louisiana (1885)
     St. Paul Lutheran Church (1960)

Clergy who served the church up to 1893:
     Christian Sans (1840-1843); Christian Rudolph Korndörffer (1843-1844); J. E. Schneider (1843-1844); Christian Schrenk (1845-1848); Johann Jakob Bühler (1848-1856); Christian Gottlieb Mödinger (1855-1890); Gottfried J. B. Wegener (1887-1946).

Current affiliation:
     St. Paul Lutheran Church is today affiliated with the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

Current address:
     St. Paul Lutheran Church
     2624 Burgundy Street
     New Orleans LA 70117

Note: In 1888, the English-speaking members of what is today’s St. Paul Lutheran Church formed their own church, which they called First English Lutheran Church. This church still exists today. Some of their earliest records have been indexed in L'Heritage, the publication of the St. Bernard Genealogical Society. They include:
     Births/Baptisms (1888–1925)
          HER 11.41:62 (+ 11.42:117 through 13.50:96)
     Marriages – Marriage Book I
          HER 11.41:67 (+ 11.42:121, 11.43:206, 12.46:101)
     Deaths – Burials, Book I
          HER 13.49:19 (+ 13.50:101)
Information about the history of First English Lutheran Church can be found in a history of the church published on its anniversary:
     100th A Centennial of Grace, Remember, Rejoice (1888-1988)