wfn.org | LWI 2009-037 Lutheran Churches Face Ongoing Struggle to Adapt to Post-Communist Realities

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Lutheran Churches Face Ongoing Struggle to Adapt to
Post-Communist Realities

Freedom Brought New Roles, Challenges in Central and Eastern
Europe

BUDAPEST, Hungary/GENEVA, 9 July 2009 (LWI) - The fall of
communism two decades ago gave Lutheran churches in Central and
Eastern Europe - most of them smaller churches - both new
freedoms and many difficult tasks, Rev. Dr Eva-Sibylle
Vogel-Mfato told participants at a 26-29 June Lutheran World
Federation (LWF) consultation in Budapest.

These churches have moved from "being a church under oppression
to a church which the state expects to take an active part in
society," remarked Vogel-Mfato, LWF Europe secretary. Lutheran
churches have had to negotiate with the state for legal
recognition and over church property confiscated during the
communist era.

Emigration is also a problem for some, Rev. Dr Annette
Leis-Peters noted. "The end of the Iron Curtain meant it was much
easier to migrate," said Leis-Peters, a German researcher at
Uppsala University studying the impact of religion on society.
Members of some minority Lutheran churches left in significant
numbers for western countries. 

>Return of Confiscated Property in Hungary

In Hungary, the government is to return by 2011 most churches
and church buildings confiscated after 1948 by the communist
regime, Rev. Dr Gabor Orosz told the consultation. Compensation
is to be provided for the remainder, reported Orosz, an assistant
professor at the Evangelical Lutheran Theology University in
Budapest. Lutherans are to be able to assign one percent of their
taxes to the church, and 20 Lutheran schools, with thousands of
pupils, are to be entitled to the same subsidies as state
schools.

The return of confiscated property can present its own problems.
"We have been given back old dilapidated churches but not the
supporting properties," noted Archbishop Dr Edmund Ratz of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Russia and Other States. 

>Diaconal Work in the Czech Republic

The Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren plays a significant
role in providing social services through its Diakonie
organization, which runs 33 centers and eight special schools.
Diakonie's ministries include hospices, residential centers for
older people and day care centers for children with learning
difficulties, who otherwise would be placed in institutions.

"We had to develop facilities that were completely missing in
our societies," said Eva Grollova, Diakonie's deputy director.
"After the fall of communism, without partners in sister churches
abroad, we wouldn’t have been able to start our activities."

>Emphasis on Protestantism in Slovenia

In Slovenia, Protestants comprise less than one percent of the
country’s population. A marginal community like the Evangelical
Church of the Augsburg Confession in Slovenia with its 20,000
members "cannot compete with the still big and influential Roman
Catholic Church with its many institutions," said Rev. Simon
Sever, a Lutheran pastor in Bodonci. But it does want to
emphasize its "Protestantism" through preaching and diaconal
work, as well as by being "productively critical" in promoting a
more human society. 

>Struggle for Recognition in Croatia

In Croatia, where the collapse of the former Yugoslavia led to
war, the minority Protestant churches still struggle to
contribute to the public arena, said Enoh Seba, a Baptist from
the Matthias Flacius Illyricus faculty of theology in Zagreb.
They lack human resources and in the post-war period have been
preoccupied with the legal regulation of their status.

>Attracting Members in the former East Germany

In the former German Democratic Republic, Protestant churches,
which historically gathered a majority of the population, became
a marginalized minority, reported Rev. Dr Marianne Subklew. 

After German reunification in 1990, the churches in the East
took over the church-state model of the West, where the
Protestant and Roman Catholic churches accounted for a majority
of the population. They adopted the western church tax system and
took on religious education in schools as well as vast areas of
diaconal and social work, often in competition with other welfare
organizations.

"While some people had hoped that, after the political changes,
people would again flock to join the churches, this hope was
disappointed," said Subklew, herself from eastern Germany but now
working in Hamburg for the North Elbian Evangelical Lutheran
Church. 

The future of the church in eastern Germany depends on whether
congregations are able to develop structures and patterns to
attract new members. "People have left the church in droves, but
can be won only as individuals," Subklew said.

>Common Issues Across Europe

The consultation was the final meeting in a European study on
"Church and State in Societies of Transformation." The study
began in 2006 as an opportunity for LWF member churches in
Central and Eastern Europe to explore together their relationship
with the state after communism. It was later expanded to include
churches elsewhere in the continent, Vogel-Mfato explained, "as
we discerned more and more how many issues we have in common all
over Europe." (794 words)

A contribution by Stephen Brown, managing editor of Ecumenical
News International, who reported on the consultation for LWI.

>*        *          *

(The LWF is a global communion of Christian churches in the
Lutheran tradition. Founded in 1947 in Lund, Sweden, the LWF
currently has 140 member churches in 79 countries all over the
world, with a total membership of 68.5 million. 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.)

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