This institution was founded in 1980 at the Theological Seminary Marienhöhe in Darmstadt as a central scientific archive of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Europe, and was relocated to Friedensau Adventist University in 1997. The archive is responsible to its carrier, the Euro-Africa Division of Seventh-day Adventists. Its task is to collect all available and significant written information about the history of Adventism in Europe and beyond, to organize these sources and to provide access to them in accordance with its user guidelines. As a result of years of intensive searching within Germany and beyond, the archive now presides over ca. 3,500 records comprised of original documents or photocopies, film and picture material. The collection focuses on documenting the history and mission of the Adventist Church in Central, Southwestern and Eastern Europe, in the Near East, in North, Central and East Africa, as well as in several countries of the Far East. Pertinent donations and personal effects of all kinds, documents in the form of letters, journals, chronicles and photographs are thankfully accepted. As a confessional archive, the institute strives to preserve its own historical and theological heritage and thereby play a part in strengthening the Protestant Adventist presence and identity in Europe. Beyond that, the institute endeavors to facilitate inter-confessional dialog by providing a "laboratory" for research and interaction in order to dismantle religious prejudices and misunderstandings and thus to give impulses for mutual understanding.

Director of the Institute
Daniel Heinz, M.A., Ph.D.
+49 3921-916155
Daniel.Heinz@ThH-Friedensau.de

Visit the website of the European archives (German).