In 1897, a group of congregations left the UNLC and formed the Lutheran Free Church. In 1900, another group of congregations left to form the Church of the Lutheran Brethren of America. The UNLC merged in 1917 with two other Norwegian-American synods, the Hauge Synod (est. 1876) and the Norwegian Synod (1853), to form the Evangelical Lutheran Church. That body later merged into the American Lutheran Church, which itself became part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Marcus Olaus Bøckmann was president of the United Church Seminary in Saint Paul, Minnesota, which was operated by the UNLC until the 1917 merger.