Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther was a German-American Lutheran minister. He was the first president of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (LCMS) and its most influential theologian. He is commemorated by that church on its Calendar of Saints on May 7. He has been described as a man who gave up his homeland for the freedom to speak freely, to believe freely, and to live freely, by emigrating from Germany to the United States.
Portrait of an elderly Walther
Walther's home on Texas Avenue in St. Louis
Image: CFW Walther Cutout
Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod
The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (LCMS), also known as the Missouri Synod, is an orthodox, traditional, confessional Lutheran denomination in the United States. With 1.8 million members as of 2021, it is the second-largest Lutheran body in the United States, behind the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The LCMS was organized in 1847 at a meeting in Chicago, Illinois, as the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States, a name which partially reflected the geographic locations of the founding congregations.
Old Lutheran free church leader Friedrich August Brünn sent about 235 men to serve as pastors in the Missouri Synod.
Franz Pieper, June 27, 1852 – June 3, 1931
Official seal of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod