Communicant members who move to another congregation shall be given, following appropriate announcements to the congregation, an attestation regarding their doctrine and conduct, signed on behalf of the consistory by two authorised office-bearers. This attestation shall also record their children who have not yet made public profession of faith. The consistory of the congregation concerned shall be notified in due time.
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There are two kinds of attestations:
a. concerning communicant members and their children;
b. concerning non-communicant members.
The former shall be handed over to the applicants, while, in the
meantime, and correctly, the consistory of the congregation
concerned is informed.
The communicant members are expected to hand in their attestation
to the consistory of their ‘new’ locale, in this way requesting
that they be taken under its supervision and discipline.
The latter are dealt with in Article 60.
In actual fact, an attestation is nothing more than a statement regarding the member’s doctrine and conduct.
This article clearly states that the request for an attestation
must be presented for the congregation’s approval before it can
be issued. This means that an attestation has to be requested
some time, say at least a fortnight, prior to one’s
departure.
The purpose of such an announcement is to give the other members
of the congregation the opportunity to raise any possible
objections.