Caspar Erich Schieler

Caspar Erasmus (Erich) Schieler (July 14, 1851 – January 13, 1934) was a German theologian, church historian and priest in the late 19th century and early 20th century. According to documents provided by Mainz Cathedral and the Diocesan Seminary, Schieler studied philosophy and theology at the Episcopal Seminary in Mainz (closed during the Kulturkampf in 1878), receiving the Doctor of Divinity degree. Schieler first served as a priest at the age of twenty-five at Mainz, Cathedral ordained under Bishop Wilhelm Emmanuel von Ketteler in the year 1876. Due to the Kulturkampf, Schieler was interrogated by the German government and forced to pastor his parish in secret, to avoid further attention. While secretly pastoring in Weisskirchen, Schieler began working on his dissertation: Magister Johannes Nider, for which he received the degree of Doctor of Theology, magna cum laude in Würzburg, Germany in the year 1886. Schieler then become the Professor of Moral Theology at Diocesan Seminary of Mainz in Baden-Württemberg. After breaking from the Catholic Church and converting to Protestantism, Schieler continued writing books and became a pastor in the German Evangelical Synod of North America, which later merged into the United Church of Christ, a mainline Protestant Christian denomination, with historical confessional roots in the Reformed, Congregational and Lutheran traditions. Schieler served as a Professor of theology and Latin American and German language and literature at the Mission House College, which later became Lakeland University. At the request of the Educational Department, Schieler later took up a teaching position at Redfield College, teaching theology in Redfield, South Dakota. Schieler was then called upon by the German Evangelical Synod of North America, to teach and preach in communities in Hartsburg, Missouri, Hamel and Johannisburg, Illinois and Marion, Wisconsin.