Talk:Lutheran Trinity Church, East Melbourne

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A fact from Lutheran Trinity Church, East Melbourne appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 28 March 2019 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the Lutheran Trinity Church in East Melbourne has occupied its site continuously since 1854, with services conducted in German?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2019/March. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Lutheran Trinity Church, East Melbourne.

Wikipedia

Name of the church[edit]

The church's website gives its name as German Lutheran Trinity Church.[1] Should we change the title to this and use this name in the article? Verbcatcher (talk) 03:18, 6 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Also, there is no article at Lutheran Trinity Church or German Lutheran Trinity Church, so "East Melbourne" is unnecessary for disambiguation and should probably be omitted from the article title. Verbcatcher (talk) 03:21, 6 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I wondered about that and it's true that for Wikipedia's purposes the "East Melbourne" is currently redundant. However, internet searching shows there are a million trinity churches and many of them are Lutheran. Also, a search of Wikipedia intitle:"trinity church" shows lots of examples where the location is in the title such as Holy Trinity Church, Birchfield and Holy Trinity Church, Salzburg. I don't see why this church should be picked as "the" Lutheran Trinity church, with or without "German".

Many names appear to be used to describe this church. The cover of the Mees reference gives the title "A German Church in the Garden of God" with the subtitle "Melbourne's Trinity Lutheran Church". The preface starts "This book tells the story of Melbourne's German-speaking Trinity Lutheran Church" and uses variations on the name throughout the book. The plaque on the church fence shown at the official website includes "The German Lutherean Church was granted this site in 1852." This gives a business name as "German Lutheran Trinity Church East Melbourne Inc." This says "Cordial invitation to Holy Trinity Church in East Melbourne." Doing a Google search for the church shows some photos including one of a shield, probably near the front door. That gives what might be the official name: "Dreifaltigkeitskirche" (Trinity Church).

Confusion reigns. Browsing categories such as US Lutheran churches shows many ideas about church titles. Johnuniq (talk) 04:40, 6 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I take your point, if there are other notable churches of this name then this may not be the primary topic. However, the word order "Lutheran Trinity Church" is unusual, and a Google search for this in quotes mainly brings up this church. "Trinity Lutheran Church" is much more common. As to the name to use, I think we should be guided by the church's website and recent notices put up by the church (such as that pictured here), which appear to overwhelmingly use "German Lutheran Trinity Church". The German language version of the website has "Deutsche Evangelische Dreifaltigkeitskirche" (click on the flag at the top left corner). We might put a redirect from this in some form. I have added it to Dreifaltigkeitskirche (disambiguation).

On another issue, is this church a member of the Lutheran Church of Australia, or of another denomination or grouping? Verbcatcher (talk) 06:44, 6 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I don't particularly mind about the title but it might be an idea to get some input from people familiar with the intricacies of naming articles before moving it. Re "German", I imagined that there were two reasons for using that word. First, in an historic context, people would refer to the "German Church" because the words were familiar and they quickly conveyed the meaning. Second, in current context, the church would want to alert people that (most) services were in German: that would attract people wanting that, and warn anyone not wanting it. In other words, I see "German" as an adjective rather than part of the name. It's frustrating that we can't find a knock-out source. On reflection, in choosing the name, I think I was mainly influenced by the Heritage Council description which is "Lutheran Trinity Church, Organ, Hall and Manse". It uses "Lutheran Trinity Church" several times (expand "Record Details" in the right-hand side bar to see more). Johnuniq (talk) 07:08, 6 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]