Palestinian heads

world group

STUTTGART (Germany) – Bishop Munib A. Younan, a passionate campaigner for peace and inter-faith dialogue in the Middle East, was elected President of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) at its General Assembly in Stuttgart on July 24.

Bishop Younan, of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL), succeeded Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, who has been President of the LWF since the denomination’s last Assembly in Winnipeg, Canada, in 2003.

Bishop Younan has headed his church body since 1998 and was the third Palestinian bishop of the church founded by Germans in the 19^th century and previously led by clergy from Germany. A member of the LWF since 1974, the ELCJHL has about 3,000 members.

The bishop was the first to translate the Augsburg Confession, a key document of the Lutheran Church, into Arabic. He is the author of Witnessing for Peace, a book about the search for peace in his homeland and numerous articles on churches and the search for peace in the Holy Land. – World Methodist Council First Friday Letter.