Carel Frans Sebald Pape served as minister of the Dutch Reformed congregation in Aalten for almost forty years. When he took up his post there in 1841, he could scarcely have imagined that Aalten would remain his place of work for almost the whole of his remaining career. Towards the end of his ministry, he also became involved in the growing church disputes that were becoming increasingly visible in Aalten.
Pape was born on 21 June 1807 in Hochdahl, near Düsseldorf, the son of Georg Wilhelm Pape and Henriette Metzler. His name also appears in sources in the German form Carl Franz Sebald Pape. In 1832 he became a candidate for the Dutch Reformed ministry.
Minister in Sprang
His first congregation was Sprang in North Brabant. His appointment was preceded by an unusual series of events. The local process for calling a minister had become deadlocked in 1833 because of disagreement within the church council. The authorities eventually intervened: on 14 September 1833, King William I appointed candidate C.F.S. Pape as minister of Sprang. He was inducted there on 10 November of that year. Pape thus became, as a later account aptly put it, a ‘minister of William I’.
On 4 February 1834, Pape married Maria Eckelboom in Amsterdam. She had been born there in 1810. The couple had several children. Their eldest daughter, Anna Diederika Maria Carolina Elisabeth, was born in Sprang in 1836.
After more than seven years, Pape left Sprang. His final service there was on 27 December 1840. A week later, a much longer period of his life began.
Almost forty years in Aalten
Pape was inducted as minister in Aalten on 3 January 1841. His farewell sermon in Sprang and his inaugural sermon in Aalten were published that same year by Kets and Lambrechts in Doesburg. For his inaugural sermon in Aalten he chose a passage from the First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, chapter 4, verses 1 to 4. The two sermons were reviewed in 1842 in the Vaderlandsche Letteroefeningen.
Pape would go on to serve Aalten as a minister for almost forty years. Population registers show him and his wife Maria living in Aalten over several decades.
During the nineteenth century, there were major theological differences within the Dutch Reformed Church. In Aalten too, these divisions became increasingly visible as the century progressed. Sources place Pape within the liberal wing of the Dutch Reformed Church.
His position became particularly clear towards the end of his career. In 1879, the orthodox minister Rev. Johannes Hendrik Frederik Gangel came to Aalten. Relations between the two ministers soon deteriorated. By then Pape was ill and had appointed someone to take over his catechism classes. Under church regulations, however, that appointment fell within the authority of the church council. Gangel and the council opposed Pape on this point.
The different theological tendencies also clashed during the school struggle of the period. Gangel wanted to make the Dutch Reformed church building available for a meeting of the School and Gospel Union, which campaigned for Christian education. Pape was among the members of the congregation who supported the churchwardens when they refused permission. The dispute shows how theological differences had by then also begun to affect church and social life in Aalten.
Pape did not live to see the later Doleantie in Aalten. The conflicts of his final years in office nevertheless took place during the same period in which divisions between liberal and orthodox Dutch Reformed members were becoming increasingly pronounced.
Final years
The year 1880 brought major changes. His wife Maria Eckelboom died in Aalten on 13 March 1880. A few months later, Pape’s long ministry also came to an end. He retired on 1 November 1880.
He did not enjoy his retirement for long. Carel Frans Sebald Pape died in Nijmegen on 22 March 1881, aged 73.