The Search for Peace in Times of Chaos—Volume English caused splits in many congregations To prevent the threatened disintegration, a union of all the Lutheran synods in America was proposed In 1820 the General Synod was organized in Pennsylvania, but a few of the district synods stood aloof.”4 On April 26, 1847, twelve pastors representing fifteen German Lutheran congregations met in Chicago, Illinois, and founded a new church body, the ǡ Ǥ A serious break in the General Synod occurred several years later The disagreements between the liberal and the conservative elements in that body had not abated with time At the next convention (1866), it was declared that the Pennsylvania Synod was no longer in practical union with the General Synod The Pennsylvania ministerium at once sent out an invitation to all American and Canadian synods to join with it in forming a new general body In response to this invitation, a convention assembled the same year, and thirteen synods were consolidated into the General Council It takes as its basis the ͳͷͺͲ and comprises the Missouri and other Western synods Thus the Lutherans of the United States are divided into various bodies, as are many other mainline denominations In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, German Lutherans cooperated with German Reformed churches on the frontiers of the newly formed United States Other American Lutherans, from the Old Lutheran dissenters, formed churches with stricter attitudes toward ecumenism In the twentieth century, many of those smaller, stricter churches merged with other established Lutheran groups like the ǡ ǡ and the Ǥ (ELCA) was formed in 1988 by the merging of three churches and, it is the largest of all the Lutheran denominations in the United States The ELCA’s three predecessor churches were themselves the product of previous mergers and splits among various independent Lutheran synods in the United States The Evangelical Ltheran Church in America has been actively involved in ecumenical dialogues with several denominations As of the acceptance of the document 1