Presbyter, while in the other provinces the corresponding terms are Gemeindekirchenrat (congregation council) with its members being called Älteste (elder). Authoritarian traditions competed with liberal and modern ones. Committed congregants formed Kirchenparteien, which nominated candidates for the elections of the parochial presbyteries and of the provincial or church-wide general synods. A strong Kirchenpartei were the Konfessionellen (the denominationals), representing congregants of Lutheran tradition, who had succumbed in the process of uniting the denominations after 1817 and still fought the Prussian Union. They promoted Neo-Lutheranism and strictly opposed the liberal stream of , promoting rationalism and a reconcialition of belief and modern knowledge, advocated by Deutscher Protestantenverein. A third Kirchenpartei was the anti-liberal Volkskirchlich-Evangelische Vereinigung (VEV, established in the mid-19th century, People's Church-Evangelical Association), colloquially Middle party (), affirming the Prussian Union, criticising the Higher criticism in Biblical science, but still claiming the freedom of science also in theology. The middle party's long-serving president and member of the general synod (1891–1915) was the known law professor (DVP), who co-authored the Weimar Constitution. By far the most successful Kirchenpartei in church elections was the anti-liberal Union, being in common sense with the Konfessionellen in many fields, but affirming the Prussian Union. Therefore, the Positive Union often formed coalitions with the Konfessionellen. King William I of Prussia sided with the Positive Union. Before 1918 most consistories and the Evangelical Supreme Church Council were dominated by proponents of the Positive Union. In 1888 King William II of Prussia could only appoint the liberal Adolf von Harnack as professor of theology at the Frederick William University of Berlin after long public debates and protests by the Evangelical Supreme Church Council. The ever-growing societal segment of the workers among the Evangelical parishioners had little affinity to the Church, which was dominated in their pastors and functionaries by members of the bourgeoisie and aristocracy. A survey held in early 1924 determine that in 96 churches in Berlin, Charlottenburg, and Schöneberg, only 9 to 15% of the parishioners actually attended the services. Congregations in workers' districts, often comprising several ten thousands of parishioners, usually counted hardly more than a hundred congregants in regular services. William II and his wife Augusta Viktoria of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg, who presided over the Evangelical Association for the Construction of Churches, often financed church construction for poor congregations and promoted massive programmes of church constructions especially in workers' districts, but could not increase the attraction