Theodor Fliedner (21 January 18004 October 1864) was a German Lutheran minister and founder of Lutheran deaconess training. In 1836, he founded Kaiserswerther Diakonie, a hospital and deaconess training center. Together with his wives Friederike Münster and Caroline Bertheau, he is regarded as the renewer of the apostolic deaconess ministry. His work in nursing was pioneering for Florence Nightingale, who spent a few months in Kaiserswerth in 1850. Background Fliedner was born in Eppstein in Hesse, Germany. He was the son of a Lutheran minister, and studied theology at the University of Giessen and the University of Göttingen as well as at Herborn Academy, the theological seminary in Herborn. He was, for a time, a house teacher. In 1821 he assumed the pastorate in the poor municipality of Kaiserswerth (now in Düsseldorf). When the town could no longer support church and ministry due to an economic crisis, he undertook journeys to collect donations. Beginning in Westphalia, these travels also took him to the Netherlands and England. Career In the Netherlands he became acquainted with the ancient church office of deaconess while spending time among the Moravian Church, which had revived the institution in 1745. In England he met with English social reformer, Elizabeth Fry, who demonstrated her work among her nation's impoverished and imprisoned people. He returned home not only with a large financial collection for his municipality but also with new ideas about social work among the disadvantaged. He began by working among inmates at the Düsseldorf Prison, preaching the Gospel and ministering to spiritual and physical needs. He walked to and from Düsseldorf every other Sunday until a regular prison chaplain was appointed. The German prisons were then in a very bad state; but those interested in their improvement banded together, and in 1826, Fliedner created the Rhenish-Westphalian Prison Society (Rheinisch-Westfälische Gefängnisgesellschaft). Fliedner realized that the first step must be toward looking after the prisoners on their release, and accordingly, in 1833, he opened at Kaiserswerth a refuge for discharged female convicts. To better support and teach Kaiserwerth's children, he founded a school in 1835 which became the venue for a women teachers' seminar. Deaconess Training In many cities, there were no hospitals at that time. Following somewhat the model of the early Christian Church's diaconate, incorporating ideas learned from Fry and the Mennonites, and applying his own thoughts, Fliedner developed a plan whereby young women would find