Friedrich Oldenberg (1820–94), the Managing Director of the Central Committee for Inner Missions, toured the southern districts of East Prussia in the autumn of 1865. He made the trip at the request of the Inner Mission Society and the Senior Consistory in Berlin because officials had received some disturbing information about the pastors serving in the United Prussian Church. According to the reports, the clergy in the eastern districts were so insensitive and lazy that Protestant parishioners were turning to Catholic priests for pastoral care and then converting to Catholicism. Members of the Senior Consistory and the Minister for Education and Ecclesiastical Affairs, Heinrich von Mühler (1813–74), were concerned and wanted a trustworthy individual to inspect the region and submit a report on the East Prussian churchscape. They chose Friedrich Oldenberg, a Jewish convert and native of Königsberg (East Prussia), as well as a longtime member of the Inner Mission Society. He toured the districts for two months and organized his findings in a lengthy report of 173 pages that he submitted in January 1866 to officials in Berlin.