wfn.org | News in brief

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

... First visit of the LWF president to Poland. In his first year as
president of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), Christian Krause has
visited Poland. From October 12 to 14 he was the guest of the Evangelical
Church of the Augsburg Confession in Poland. "This is an important event
for our church and for its position in the world-wide Lutheran family,"
commented the Polish bishop, Jan Szarek. Krause emphasized the importance
of the relations between Catholics and Lutherans. Both sides recur to the
Reformation as a point of departure for dealing theologically with the
rupture, he remarked. While the initial response to the Joint Declaration
on the Doctrine of Justification was disappointing, he continued, it is
gratifying that both churches are continuing the dialogue and seeking ways
of drawing closer.

... Australian Lutherans join ecumenical body. The Lutheran Church of
Australia was received into membership of the National Council of Churches
in Australia (NCCA) following a unanimous and enthusiastic vote at the
council's third National Forum on October 1. The Lutheran Church was a full
participant in the preparatory process that led to the formation of the
NCCA in July 1994. In late 1997 it decided by an overwhelming majority to
be part of the national ecumenical organization. NCCA General Secretary the
Rev. David Gill said the move was the fulfillment of a long and careful
deliberative process. "Would that all churches take the issue of membership
as seriously as they have done," he said.

... God's Strong Daughters: This is the theme for a first regional meeting
of delegates of the LWF office for Women in Church and Society (WICAS).
About 25 representatives from western European churches will meet from
November 13 to 15 in Strasbourg to discuss the situation of women in
volunteer and full-time leadership positions. The agenda moreover includes
information sharing on international cooperation between ecumenical bodies
and organizations and the election of the WICAS coordinator for western
Europe.

... Ecumenical group visits institutions of the Thuringian church. On
October 15, eight men and women from the USA, the Netherlands, the United
Kingdom, Slovakia, Tanzania and Finland visited congregations, agencies and
institutions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Thuringia (Germany).
This visit followed a recommendation of the World Council of Churches and
the Lutheran World Federation that individual churches invite
representatives of other churches to come and get a new perspective on
their own situation. At present, the Thuringian church faces restructuring,
a decreasing number of church members and the concomitant financial worries
that that entails. The visitors contributed their own experiences of being
minority churches in a secular context.

... Lutheran church in Moscow inaugurates parish hall. The parish hall of
the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Peter and Paul in Moscow was inaugurated
on October 4. It forms the upper storey over the apse of the neogothic
church in central Moscow. After 60 years, during which the church was
closed, rebuilt and given over to other uses, the reestablished Lutheran
congregation returned to the house of worship. At the same time, the Moscow
pastor Peter Urie was installed as provost for the Evangelical Lutheran
Church in Russia and Other States.

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