wfn.org | Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, fellowship with Lutherans in Russia

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

"Historical, geographical and governmental reasons"

ST LOUIS, Missouri, U.S.A./GENEVA, 14 September 1998 - The Lutheran
Church-Missouri Synod, at its 60th Regular Convention this summer, declared
itself to be in "altar and pulpit fellowship" with the Evangelical Lutheran
Church of Ingria in Russia (ELCIR).

The agreement in doctrine and practice means that clergy from the two
bodies may exchange pulpits and that members may commune at each other's
altars.

The ELCIR, had last year declared itself to be in fellowship with the
Missouri Synod. The Russian church is also a member of the Lutheran World
Federation (LWF) and is his close ties to the Evangelical Lutheran Church
of Finland (ELCF), while the Missouri Synod is not an LWF member.

The Rev. Dr Samuel H. Nafzger, executive director of the Missouri Synod's
Commission on Theology and Church Relations, told the convention that the
ELCIR had explained that these relationships are based on "historical,
geographical and governmental reasons". He added that the ELCIR also has
given assurances that it disagrees with any LWF or Finnish-church position
that is contrary to those affirmed in its agreement with the Missouri
Synod.

The history of the Lutheran church in Ingria goes back to the seventeenth
century. Under Stalin the congregations were obliterated, and the present
day Ingrian congregations came into being only in the 1970s. The pastoral
and administrative authority then lay with the Estonian Evangelical
Lutheran Church. Since 1992 the ELCIR has been independent, joining the LWF
in 1994 as a member church.

The first ELCIR synod created a new church constitution in 1993 and named
Leino Hassinen from the ELCF as its bishop. Aarre Kuukauppi, who in October
1995 was named by the Ingrian synod as Hassinen's successor, is the first
Ingrian bishop.

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