wfn.org | LWF president to visit eastern and southern Africa

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

First official visit to the region

GENEVA, 23 March 1999 (lwi) The president of the Lutheran World
Federation (LWF) Bishop Christian Krause will visit LWF member
churches in Eastern and Southern Africa next month. This will be his
first visit to Africa as LWF president.

During his 6-26 April visit, the LWF president who will be
accompanied by his private secretary, Rev. Dieter Rammler, will go to
Ethiopia, Tanzania, Kenya, Madagascar and South Africa, where he will
be received by the respective member churches, and also visit some of
the LWF/Department for World Service (DWS) field programs.

His first stop will be Ethiopia, where he will be hosted by the
president of the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus (EECMY)
Rev. Yadessa Daba. While in the country, the LWF president will meet
top government representatives as well as senior representatives of
other churches, especially the Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox
Church, Abune Paulos.

The EECMY has more than 2.2 million members, making it the second
largest LWF member church in Africa.

In Tanzania, Krause will be received by the president of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania (ELCT) Bishop Samson
Mushemba. Apart from holding discussions with government officials
and ELCT representatives while in the country, Krause will visit the
LWF/DWS Tanganyika Christian Refugee Service (TCRS). The ELCT is the
largest LWF member church in Africa, with some 2.5 million members.
The late Bishop Josia Kibira, from the ELCT's Bukoba diocese, served
as LWF president from 1977 to 1984.

During Krause's stopover in Nairobi, he will meet the president of
the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Kenya (ELCK), Bishop Nyamwaro
Francis Onderi, and his counterpart in the Kenya Evangelical Lutheran
Church (KELC), Bishop Zachariah Wachira Kahuthu. The ELCK has 55,000
members and the KELC 21,720 members. The LWF president will also meet
with the general secretary of the All Africa Conference of Churches
(AACC) among other representatives of LWF-related bodies.

The president of the Malagasy Lutheran Church, Rev. Benjamin
Rabenorolahy, will receive Krause in Madagascar. While in the
country, the LWF president will meet with representatives of the
Lutheran church and government officials. The Malagasy church has 1.5
million members.

Winding up his itinerary, Krause will visit Johannesburg, South
Africa, where he will meet Bishop Andreas Fortuin, the presiding
bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Southern Africa (ELCSA).
Other Lutheran church leaders with whom he will hold discussions
include Bishop Manas Buthelezi of the Central Diocese (Johannesburg
area), Bishop Nils Rohwer (ELCSA-Cape Church), Bishop Dieter Lilje
(ELCSA-Natal Transvaal), and the president of the Lutheran Communion
in Southern Africa (LUCSA), Bishop Philip J. Robinson. He will also
call on the general secretary of the South African Council of
Churches (SACC).

The LUCSA works in close cooperation with the LWF as one of its three
sub-regions in Africa. It is the legal successor of the Federation of
Evangelical Lutheran Churches in Southern Africa and comprises 13
member churches in Malawi, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, South Africa,
Angola, Mozambique and Zambia.

It is customary for the LWF president to pay an official visit each
year to the LWF member churches in a particular area.  In April 1998,
the LWF president made a three-week visit to Lutheran churches in
Latin America and the Caribbean.

Bishop Christian Krause from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in
Brunswick, Germany, was elected LWF president in July 1997,
succeeding Rev. Dr. Gottfried Brakemeier of Brazil. Before his
election as bishop of Brunswick in 1994, Krause was the general
secretary of the German Kirchentag (German Protestant Lay Movement).
He worked for the LWF's TCRS from 1971 to 1972 and was on the LWF's
Geneva staff as special assistant in the then Department of Theology
from 1969 to 1970. Currently, he is also chairperson of the Council
of the Confederation of Protestant Churches in Germany's region of
Lower Saxony.

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Lutheran World Information
Assistant Editor, English: Pauline Mumia
E-mail: pmu@lutheranworld.org
http://www.lutheranworld.org/