Bishop Munib A Younan of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL) has been elected president of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) by the church body’s highest legislative body.
Bishop Younan will succeed Presiding Bishop Mark S Hanson of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, who has been LWF president since the organisation’s last assembly met in Winnipeg, Canada, in 2003.
According to the LWF, the Rt Rev Dr Younan received 300 votes out of the 360 votes cast at the assembly, taking place this year in Stuttgart, Germany.
Bishop Younan, a former vice-president of the LWF, is president of the Fellowship of Middle East Evangelical Churches and serves with three Jerusalem patriarchs and nine other bishops on the International Christian Committee of Jerusalem.
He is also a co-founder of the Council of Religious Institutions in the Holy Land, made up of the two chief rabbis of Israel, heads of the local churches, the Chief Judge of the Islamic Court in Palestine and other Muslim leaders.
The president-elect has headed his church body since 1998 and was the third Palestinian bishop of the church founded by Germans in the nineteenth century and previously led by clergy from Germany.
A member of the LWF since 1974, the ELCJHL has about 3,000 members.
-
5 things to know about Pope Leo XIV
-
Trump denies any involvement in AI pope image amid Catholic backlash
-
Jeremy Clarkson warns Christianity is 'in danger' amid falling birth rates
-
More people are going to church than before the pandemic
-
Pope Leo XIV’s first Mass sends a defining message of faith in a distracted world
-
Telling the untold story behind elections
Most Popular
News
The unyielding faith of one woman that shook an empire
In the year AD 203, a young woman named Vibia Perpetua stepped into a Roman arena in Carthage, North Africa. The crowd jeered, wild beasts prowled, and death was certain. Yet she did not hesitate.
Joy in the journey – serving King Jesus, meeting King Charles
Nicki Duncalfe said 'yes' to God's call, leaving behind comfort and career to support her husband’s mission flying with MAF, raise her boys cross-culturally, and live out her faith in extraordinary ways.
Pope Leo XIV’s first Mass sends a defining message of faith in a distracted world
Standing beneath Michelangelo’s towering fresco of the Last Judgement, newly elected Pope Leo XIV delivered his first papal homily in the Sistine Chapel, setting a bold and unmistakable tone for his pontificate. His message: reclaim an authentic vision of Jesus Christ or risk living in a state of “practical atheism”.
China clamps down on foreign missionaries
China has imposed sweeping restrictions on Christian practices.