[6] In 1544 Albert, Duke of Prussia founded the Albertina University, Königsberg in Prussia/Karaliaučius, which became the principal educational establishment for Lutheran pastors and theologians of Lithuanian language.

Right in 1544 Duke Albert appointed Lutheran pastors, who had fled anti-Protestant oppression in the Grand Duchy, as professors at the Albertina, namely Stanislovas Rapolionis (who finished his doctorate at Wittenberg University with a ducal scholarship) and Abraomas Kulvietis (exiled 1542).

[7] More refugees from Lithuania proper followed and became pastors in various parishes, such as Martynas Mažvydas, who published the Lutheran Catechismusa Prasty Szadei in 1547.

[10] In order to restaff orphaned pastorates after the plague, King Frederick William I of Prussia established two departments: in 1718, the Lithuanian Seminary (German: Litauisches Seminar, Lithuanian: Lietuvių kalbos seminaras closed in 1944) at Albertina, and in 1727, another one (Halės lietuvių kalbos seminaras) at the University of Halle upon Saale, closed in 1740.

[8] The archpriests of Lithuania Minor were based in Tilsit (as of 1547), Ragnit (as of 1554), Insterburg (as of 1575), Schaaken in Prussia/Šakiai (Niekrasovo) (as of 1590), Memel (as of 1592), Wehlau (as of 1608), and Labiau (as of 1707).

By the mid-1720s, the rising number of Lutheran parishes were organised in inspections (renamed Kirchenkreis in the 19th century; i.e. deaneries), such as in Stallupönen/Stalupėnai (Nesterov), Fischhausen/Žuvininkai (Primorsk), Schaaken in Prussia, Labiau, Insterburg, Tilsist, Ragnit and Memel.

[13] After the nationalist demagoguery following the cession of the Klaipėda Region (northern Lithuania Minor), first a League of Nations mandate, after World War I, only nine Lutheran parishes continued Lithuanian services in the southern and central part of Lithuania Minor, which remained with Germany, but were mostly forbidden after the Nazi takeover in 1933.

[9] On 30 July 1919 a majority of 82 synodals from Klaipėda Region decided to keep the jurisdiction with the Ecclesiastical Province of East Prussia against two votes for a separation and 15 abstentions.

[13] The majority of the regional clergy and the Evangelical Supreme Ecclesiastical Council (Evangelischer Oberkirchenrat, EOK), the old-Prussian executive body, resisted this plan.

[13] His many decrees were simply ignored in the parishes, who considered his officiating an illegitimate intrusion of government interferment into affairs of ecclesiastical autonomy.

[13] So in April and June 1924 Gailius twice convened the Lithuanianian-language unofficial Klaipėda Regional Synod and formed a preliminary executive body for an independent church.

In 1925 then the Klaipėda Directorate sent for their part a delegation, including independists and proponents wishing to upkeep the connection with the old-Prussian church, in order to negotiate with the EOK in Berlin.

[13] In 1934 the central government-appointed governor in the Klaipėda Region expelled nine pastors bearing German citizenship in 1934, causing Nazi Germany to protest.

[13] After 1935 Lithuania accounted for Hitler’s rising power and rather maintained a low profile in the controversy on affairs in the Klaipėda Region.

[13] By the end of 1944, when the Soviet Red Army approached the Klaipėda region, the Nazi authorities ordered civilians to evacuate the endangered areas.

[12] Together with 65,000 refugees from Lithuania proper, mostly Roman Catholic, who made their way to the western zones, 158 schools of Lithuanian language were founded there until 1948.

[16] The remaining inhabitants of Lithuania Minor underwent terrible years under the Soviet annexation, especially those in the Russian Kaliningrad oblast.

[12] The Lutheran parishes in the Klaipėda Region were revitalised by the laymen sakytojai, since all pastors had perished or remained exiled in the west.

[12] With time 27 Lutheran parishes were registered in all of Lithuania, with 12 located in the Klaipėda Region, to wit in Katyčiai (Koadjuthen), Kintai (Kinten), Klaipėda (Memel), Lauksargiai (Launen), Pašyšiai (Passon-Reisgen), Plikiai (Plicken), Priekulė, Ramučiai (Ramutten), Saugai (Sausgallen), Šilutė (Heydekrug), Vanagai (Wannaggen), Vyžiai (Wiekschnen).

When in 1958 the Soviet Union allowed Prussian Lithuanians to revert for their prior annulled German citizenship many emigrated to West Germany until 1967.

[12] So after war-related death toll and flight, perishing under Soviet post-war occupation, and the emigration in the 1950s and 1960s a mere 7,000 to 8,000 of the 137,750 mostly Lutheran Protestants (among them 35,650 Prussian Lithuanians; as of 1930) continued to live in the Klaipėda Region.

During Soviet occupation of Lithuania proper from 1940 to 1941 and again 1944 to 1990, religious instruction was forbidden and church membership entailed public penalties.

With Lithuanian independence in 1990, the ELCL began to receive back church buildings and properties that in Soviet times were nationalised and used for various profane purposes.