Abstract: This article aims to present a history of the church and the Lutheran/Evangelical community in the town of Pitesti starting from the middle of the 19^th century and in the first two decades of the 20^th century. It includes parts of the doctoral thesis entitled Modernization and urbanization in the city of Pitesti (1866-1914), defended at the University of Craiova in December 2021. In the city of Pitesti, the administrative residence of Argeș County, several Germans of Lutheran faith settled, who formed a thriving community before 1918, with their own church and a denominational primary school. The Lutheran Germans set up trading companies and were involved in social and cultural-artistic activities that paved the way: the city's first performance hall and theater known by its owners (Uklar, Lehrer), the first urban choir (Liedertafel), the first funeral insurance company (German Funeral Society of Pitesti), which meant some important landmarks of urban transformation in the modern sense.

Keywords: Lutheran church, Evangelical community, Town of Pitesti, German community, Ethnic and denominational minorities, Lutheran confessional school.

https://doi.org/10.24193/JCH.2022.1.4