 In the city of Bremerhaven, which forms with Bremen the state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, only the most important Protestant church, the united Protestant Bürgermeister-Smidt-Gedächtniskirche, belongs to the BEK.The bulk of the other Protestant church parishes in Bremerhaven is Lutheran and they belong to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover, some form part of other not regionally-delineated Protestant denominations.The area covered by these parishes belonged to the former Province of Hanover before 1947.