The first Lutherans to come to Australia in any significant number were immigrants from Prussia, who arrived in 1838 with Pastor August Kavel.
This period in Prussia was marked by a persecution of Old Lutherans who refused to use join the Prussian Union under King Frederick Wilhelm III.
On 23 and 24 May 1839, Kavel convened a meeting of the elders of the three Prussian settlements at Klemzig, Hahndorf, and Glen Osmond.
Kavel specifically pronounced disagreements with the Lutheran Confessions, favoring instead statements made in the 1838 church constitution.
One group broke away from the ELSA in 1904, and became a district of the Evangelical Lutheran Joint Synod of Ohio.
The ELSA was opposed to the practice of ELSV calling non-Lutheran pastors, so the Confessional Union they had with Immanuel Synod was dissolved.
The ELIS in 1884 broke ties with the General Synod, due to this same practice of calling non-Lutheran pastors.
As part of this, a large number of German missionaries were to be transferred to the control of Australian churches.
On 27 August 1956, the UELCA and ELCA both adopted the Theses of Agreement, which set the stage for the merging of the two organizations.
The final merge occurred in Tanunda, South Australia, at a joint synod held on 29 October to 2 November 1966.