 In fact, a merger was permanently under discussion, but never materialised due to strong regional self-confidence and traditions as well as the denominational fragmentation into Lutheran, Calvinist (Reformed) and United and uniting churches.Following the Swiss example of 1920, the Evangelical Lutheran State Church of Hanover and 28 other territorially defined German Protestant churches founded the German Evangelical Church Confederation in 1922, which was no new merged church, but a loose federation of the existing independent church bodies.In 1922 the Church of Hanover counted 2,414,000 parishioners.