wfn.org | (LWF) Farewell to Outgoing LWF President Bishop

["Frank Imhoff" <franki@elca.org>]

LWF Tenth Assembly, Winnipeg, Canada, 21-31 July 2003

PRESS RELEASE NO. 40

Farewell to Outgoing LWF President Bishop emeritus Christian Krause
German Theologian's Contribution to Communio and Ecumenical Dialogue

WINNIPEG, Canada, 2 August 2003 - With a prolonged applause and standing
ovation, participants in the Tenth Assembly of the Lutheran World Federation
(LWF) bid farewell to Bishop emeritus Dr Christian Krause, whose six-year
term as LWF President officially ended July 31. 
Krause was elected to the LWF's leading position at the 1997 Ninth Assembly
in Hong Kong, China. He was bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in
Brunswick, Germany, from 1994 to January 2002.
The newly-elected LWF President, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Presiding Bishop, Mark S. Hanson expressed deep gratitude for Krause's
leadership. "You have spent your life being an interpreter, interpreting the
Lutheran communion to the world, listening to the voices of the world and
interpreting those voices for us," Hanson said amid applause. 
Of the audiences's standing ovation, the ELCA presiding bishop said: "That
was our profound gratitude for your lifelong leadership to the [LWF]." He
noted: "You never lost your grounding as a Lutheran theologian." 
Hanson commended Krause's keen leadership of the Luther Center in Wittenberg,
describing it as a calling to make the "Luther Stadt to be a center of lively
dialogue not only exploring our history but envisioning our future." Krause
is chairperson of the Luther Center in Wittenberg, Germany, an intellectual
and spiritual meeting place founded in 1999 to promote the local institutions
that focus on Luther, and ssist persons interested in the heritage of the
Reformation worldwide.
"You have built bridges, you have spoken with clarity and your convictions as
a Lutheran theologian. You have * known when to challenge us, when to
encourage us, to let us struggle and when to bring us together again," Hanson
said. He expressed deep gratitude for +this legacy that you give to me and to
the Federation, and to the whole world."

In his vote of thanks, LWF General Secretary, Rev. Dr Ishmael Noko commended
Krause for keeping "a precise agenda that we have to move beyond the limits
that have been set by history and our confessional positions." He commended
the outgoing president also for emphasizing consistently the idea of
Eucharistic hospitality with our ecumenical partners. "

The outgoing LWF Treasurer Ms Inger J. Wremer thanked Krause for his
ecumenical approach and global perspective, "through which he has encouraged
that we should live and function in a reconciled diversity."

The Tenth Assembly of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) is taking place
21-31 July 2003 in Winnipeg, Canada, under the theme "For the Healing of the
World." It is being hosted by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada
(ELCIC).

There are around 820 men, women and youth participants in the Tenth Assembly
including 380 delegates from the 133 churches with full membership and three
associate members. The Assembly is the highest decision-making body of the
LWF, and meets normally every six years. Between Assemblies, the LWF is
governed by its Council that meets annually, and by its Executive Committee. 

Further information including photos, video and audio news, is posted on the
Assembly Web site www.lwf-assembly.org

To order photographs, please contact LWF-Photo@lutheranworld.org

*	*	*

The LWF is a global communion of Christian churches in the Lutheran
tradition. Founded in 1947 in Lund (Sweden), the LWF now has 136 member
churches in 76 countries representing over 61.7 million of the 65.4 million
Lutherans woldwide. 

The LWF acts on behalf of its member churches in areas of common interest
such as ecumenical and interfaith relations, theology, humanitarian
assistance, human rights, communication, and the various aspects of mission
and development work. Its secretariat is located in Geneva, Switzerland.