16 December 2009

Lutheran Churches in Russia Moving Toward Unity

In the past year, the Lutheran Church in which I am working (formerly known as ELCROS, currently known simply as the Evangelical Lutheran Church) and the other historic Lutheran church in the region (The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Ingria - Ingria being the historically Finnish region of northwest Russia), also supported by the ELCA, have made significant steps towards unifying their ministries. The latest declaration of the Lutheran World Federation National Committee, of which they are both a part, testifies to this. I've included an English translation of (most of) their common declaration here. While I see that the process won't be an easy one, it does seem clear that the church's ministries will be strengthened by more mutual interaction and a unification of common efforts.
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Meeting of the National Committee of the Lutheran World Federation

On December 10th a regular meeting of the National Committee of the Lutheran World Federation (which consists of the Evangelical Lutheran Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ingria) was held. The following statement was issued by the churches:

The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ingria and the Evangelical Lutheran Church, recognizing their common history of service in Russia, their dramatic experience of testing, repression, and persecution... in the period of atheistic dominance, taking into account the common goals and tasks before our Churches now, the high level of mutual trust, common membership in international and Russian ecumenical organizations, and being led by the words of the Savior “that all may be one”

declare together

In the context of an actively changing world and of new challenges which the contemporary secular worldview create for Christians, questions of our unity gain special relevance for us, historical Lutheran churches. In the time of the open preaching of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ in democratic Russia...our Churches have gained not only an understanding of the necessity of more unity, but also created the necessary spiritual and confessional grounds for such unity. With faith in God's providence as it is realized in the church's life, we declare with hope our decision to strive for a full removal of barriers to the unification of the ELC and the Church of Ingria and call our congregational members to prayerfully support this intention.

ELC Archbishop August Kruze
ELCI Bishop Arri Kugape
ELC Vice-Archbishop, Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in European Russia, Edmund Ratz.

03 December 2009

Former ELCROS Archbishop, Georg Kretschmar

A man who did much for me personally and the church in which I am working, former ELCROS Archbishop Georg Kretschmar, passed away recently after battling illness for the past few years in Germany. Archbishop Kretschmar was a very serious theological scholar, but also a very kind man. He co-presided when my wife and I were wed in 2003, and showed me great support as a very young teacher at the seminary which was so dear to him. Below you can read a bit more about his life.
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On November 19th former ELCROS bishop Georg Kretschmar died in Germany. He was 84.

Georg F.K. Kretschmar was born on August 31, 1925, into a family with a long tradition of serving as pastors in the Evangelical Church in Silesia (Poland). After finishing school in 1943 he was drafted into the army, during which time he was wounded. During his time in the army he visited an Orthodox church in Ukraine and from that moment on made it one of his goals to increase mutual understanding between the Western and Eastern churches.

Kretschmar began his theological studies in Tubingen in 1945, and continued his studies in Oxford and Heidelberg, where, in 1940, he defended his first thesis and became a teacher. He passed his second exam in the Wurtemburg church and did his internship there; in the beginning of 1953 he was ordained as a pastor in Tubingen, where he defended his doctoral dissertation later that year. After a few years there, he taught in the university of Hamburg until 1967, when he moved on to help found the new protestant theology department at the University of Munich. He worked there until 1990, and remained professor emeritus there until his passing.

Georg Kretschmar always understood his church service as an ecumenical service. He was involved in various working groups, and from 1959 to 1991 took part in 12 meeting between the Evangelical Church of Germany and the Russian Orthodox Church. In 1999 the Lutheran World Federation asked that he become a part of the worldwide Lutheran-Orthodox dialogues and lead the Lutheran delegation. This he did until 2004.

In 1989 the Bishop of the German Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Soviet Union, Harold Kalinin, asked Kretschmar to organize educational programs for the church. He agreed and found the job so important than he left his former position at the university. Although he did much for education in the church, this was not his only duties. In 1992 he became the assistant Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Russia and Other States (the successor Lutheran church body founded after the breakup of the Soviet Union), and lived in St. Petersburg on a permanent basis starting in 1993. He was elected bishop of the church at the first General Assembly, and his title was changed to Archbishop after the new constitution was adopted in 1999. He was responsible for the largest (in terms of territory) Lutheran church in the world, with 7 regions churches and around 600 congregations in his care. In this period of great change congregations were re-organized and church buildings were re-claimed by the church or built anew in dozens of places. He remained Archbishop of ELCROS until health concerns forced him to retire in 2005.

Besides his work in the church itself, Georg Kretschmar did a tremendous amount of work in various academic fields, in particularly in the areas of church history and biblical theology.

Georg Kretschmar was the father of seven children, one of which has continued the family tradition of serving as a pastor in Bavaria.