wfn.org | Krey Elected President of ELCA Philadelphia Seminary

[News News <NEWS@ELCA.ORG>]

ELCA NEWS SERVICE

November 5, 1999

KREY ELECTED PRESIDENT OF ELCA PHILADELPHIA SEMINARY
99-272-JB/MS**

     CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Rev. Philip D. W. Krey, 49, was elected
president of the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia by the
seminary's board of trustees Oct. 27.  Krey will succeed the Rev. Robert
G. Hughes, who will leave the post to resume teaching at the end of
1999.
     The Lutheran seminary is one of eight affiliated with the
5.2-million-member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the
fifth-largest Protestant denomination in the United States.
     Krey is dean and professor of early and medieval church history.
He has served on the seminary's faculty since 1990.  During his seminary
career, Krey has served as co-director of the school's urban program and
has served as a mentoring pastor at Emanuel Lutheran Church in
Philadelphia's revitalized Southwark section and at St. John Lutheran
Church in the city's Overbrook area.
     Krey has been an interim pastor for Trinity Lutheran Church in
Philadelphia's Germantown neighborhood and served as pastor for churches
in Chicago and Baltimore.
     "I'm excited and honored to be named president to serve a seminary
with such a historically significant tradition in the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America," Krey said upon his election. "I think the
seminary is ideally positioned to be a mediating educational influence
across the wider church because its students come from such dynamically
diverse backgrounds and because it is part of a region that spans urban,
suburban and rural communities."
     "I'm humbled to be following Dr. Hughes, who has been a devoted
and visionary president.  Under his leadership the seminary has enjoyed
a remarkable resurgence and historic growth," Krey added.
     The Philadelphia seminary opened the Wiedemann Center in the fall
of 1998.  The center houses 66 residential apartments, a high-technology
classroom and an Augsburg Fortress bookstore.  Augsburg Fortress is the
publishing house of the ELCA.
     In addition, the seminary recently received a $500,000 Lilly
Endowment grant for an  initiative to encourage high school youth to
engage in theological reflection about life issues.
     Krey compared the societal setting of today's church to that of
the world of the Second and Third centuries.
     "We are in a pluralistic, multicultural time much like that of the
Roman Empire of that period," Krey said.  "People have many choices
about religion.  They see a secular government failing to deliver
programs and institutions that society needs in order to be fully civil.
This kind of time calls upon many traditions and institutions --
religious, nonprofit and public -- to be able to collaborate and combine
their resources to bring about a better world.  Traditions that cling
too rigidly to their traditions may actually lose them."
     Hughes said he is excited about Krey's  appointment. "He is a
highly qualified, trusted colleague and a valued friend.  The seminary
will really be in capable hands."
     Dr. Robert Blanck, Philadelphia, who chairs the board of trustees,
said the seminary conducted a wide search for a successor to Hughes and
had discovered "that we had in our midst the candidate. The response of
the entire community here at the seminary was overwhelming.  I am
convinced that in the election of Dr. Krey we have chosen wisely and
well."
     "The students are really excited with the decision of the board to
select Dr. Krey as the next president," said Susan D. Ruggles, Easton,
Pa., president of the student body.  "He has many gifts, and his
interest in and interaction with the students is one of them."
     Krey earned a bachelor's degree from the University of
Massachusetts in 1972.  He graduated in 1976 from The Lutheran
Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, Pa., with a master of divinity
degree.  Later, he earned a master of arts degree from Catholic
University of America, Washington, D.C., in 1985 and a doctoral degree
from the University of Chicago in 1990.  Krey, born in Brooklyn, N.Y.,
is an ELCA pastor.
     Krey's key academic interests have included the urban church, and
medieval and Byzantine studies.  He worships at St. Michael Lutheran
Church, Philadelphia.
     Krey's family is strongly rooted in the Lutheran tradition. His
father, the Rev. Rudolf Krey, was a pastor who served congregations in
Germany, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. Three of his brothers are
ordained.  His mother, Gertrude, and his older brothers and sisters have
always been leaders in their congregations.
     Krey and his wife, Rene Diemer, are parents of five children:
Jessicah, a first year student at the seminary; Lindsay, a senior at the
University of Chicago; Jordan, 18; Noah, 14, and Micah, 8.  Diemer is
the seminary's registrar.  The Kreys live in Philadelphia.

[*Mark A. Staples is director of communications at the Lutheran
Theological Seminary at Philadelphia.]

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