wfn.org | News in brief

[FRANK_IMHOFF.parti@ecunet.org (FRANK IMHOFF)]

 ... Changes of personnel in the Church of Sweden. Soren Ekstrom, general
secretary of the Church of Sweden announced at the end of April that he
will not be available for a further six-year term of office. His current
term will end in April 1999. Ekstrom, 55, says the time has come for a
change and a new start in the next millennium. Next year, he will have
completed 12 years as general secretary. Ekstrom previously worked as a
state secretary in the ministry for church affairs and was government
consultant for church affairs. Anders Kompass, 42, will succeed Hilda Lind
as director of the Department for International Mission, Diakonia and
Ecumenism at the Swedish church headquarters in Uppsala. Lind resigned from
the position last October. Kompass previously headed the department for
foreign affairs.

 ... Rainer Stahl becomes new general secretary of the Martin Luther
Federation. Rainer Stahl was elected as the new general secretary of the
Martin Luther Federation at an extraordinary meeting in Erlangen, Germany,
April 22. The 47-year-old theologian has been personal assistant to
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Thuringia bishop, Roland Hoffmann, since
1992. From 1982 until 1985, Stahl was personal assistant to the then
general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), Carl H. Mau.
Stahl succeeds Peter Schellenberg who died last September.

 ... Ilkka Kantola new bishop of archdiocese of Turku. The Finnish
president, Martti Ahtisaari, has appointed the general secretary of the
archdiocese of Turku, Ilkka Kantola, to the position of Bishop of Turku.
The 41-year-old theologian received the majority of votes in the episcopal
election held in March. Since the beginning of this year, there have been
two offices in the Turku archdiocese: archbishop and bishop. Archbishop
John Vikstrom will introduce Kantola to his new position, May 31. The new
bishop will be responsible for the administration of the diocese and the
supervision of the activities of about 50 of the 75 parishes in the
archdiocese.

 ... Austrian Gertraud Knoll returns to her position as church
superintendent. Gertraud Knoll publicly announced her intention to run for
president of Austria earlier this year (see LWI 5/98 for March 10, p. 4).
She received 13.5 percent of votes in the recent presidential elections.
Knoll, 39, was the first woman to be called to the office of
"superintendent" in the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in
Austria, in 1994. She was on leave of absence during the electoral
campaign. She returns to her office as superintendent of the federal state
of Burgenland.

 ... ELCA issues statement on assassination of Guatemalan bishop. The
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has expressed profound shock and
sorrow at the assassination of Monsignor Juan Jose Gerardi Conedera,
auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese of Guatemala. Bishop Gerardi worked for
peace, justice and truth in Guatemala, most notably as head of the
archdiocesan office for human rights and coordinator of the Interdiocesan
Project for the Recovery of Historical Memory. It is essential to
recognize, the April 28 statement by ELCA presiding bishop, George H.
Anderson, says, that the human rights report which Bishop Gerardi, the
Interdiocesan staff and others compiled, was issued just two days earlier
on April 24 in the Metropolitan Cathedral of Guatemala. According to the
statement, the public release of this report set the stage for his
assassination. The report, which describes the past four decades of human
rights abuses in Guatemala, is a monumental step forward in the
construction of a firm and lasting peace in the spirit of the 1996 Peace
Accords which ended 36 years of armed conflict in the nation. The
circumstances surrounding Bishop Gerardi's murder need to be investigated
and those responsible brought to justice, the statement says.

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Lutheran World Information
Editorial Assistant: Janet Bond-Nash
E-mail: jbn@lutheranworld.org
http://www.lutheranworld.org/