23.06.2023

Preparations for the 90th Anniversary

Yusak and Ida Soleiman, here working through AMS material, prepare the history of the STFT Jakarta for its 90th anniversary. Photo by: Christoph Schwab / AMS of the UEM

"We found so much! We'll probably come back again at the end of June" is how Yusak Soleiman, Ph.D sums up the visit to the AMS of the UEM*. He and his wife Ida Soleiman are on a research trip to Wuppertal, Germany, to learn about the early history of their college.

89 years ago, on 9 August 1934, a theological college was founded in Jakarta, today's Seminary for the Philosophy of Theology (STFT Jakarta). It is Indonesia's oldest theological college. Among others, the church leader Andreas Yewangoe and the ethicist Eka Darmaputera studied here, as well as Marianne Katoppo, Indonesia's first feminist theologian. The college is currently preparing for its 90th anniversary celebrations, which will be held in Jakarta in August 2024.

Yusak Soleiman works at the Documentation Centre for Indonesian Church History at STFT Jakarta and is an ordained minister of the GKI*, a Protestant church in Indonesia. In the archives, he informs himself  about Th. Müller-Krüger and W. Lempp, two important theologians in the early days of the STFT. At the same time, he wants to strengthen the STFT's relationship with the AMS: "Our documentation centre covers the period from the Dutch East India Company VOC around 1600 to the middle of the 20th century. So the AMS's holdings are naturally of great interest to us."

Christoph Schwab, curator of the AMS, is happy about the international interest: "For us as the Archive and Museum Foundation of the UEM, it is particularly important to be able to help researchers like Mr Soleiman with an enquiry." The AMS holdings depict the history of the member churches in many ways and can be used as a valuable source for their research and documentation, by researchers from all three regions of the UEM: Asia, Africa and Germany. Therefore, they also belong to the international fellowship of churches, and not to a single church or country.

*AMS of the UEM = Archive and Museum Foundation of the United Evangelical Mission

*GKI = Gereja Kristen di Indonesia (Evangelical Church in Indonesia, not a UEM member church)