The United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany (German: Vereinigte Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche Deutschlands, VELKD) was founded on July 8, 1948, in

Eisenach Eisenach () is a town in Thuringia, Germany with 42,000 inhabitants, located west of Erfurt, southeast of Kassel and northeast of Frankfurt. It is the main urban centre of western Thuringia and bordering northeastern Hessian regions, situat ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. Its total membership is 8.6 million people. The Member Churches of this organization are in full fellowship with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). All its member churches belong to the

Evangelical Church in Germany The Evangelical Church in Germany (german: Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland, abbreviated EKD) is a federation of twenty Lutheran, Reformed (Calvinist) and United (e.g. Prussian Union) Protestant regional churches and denominations in German ...

, with which it co-operates closely. It has recently been reduced from an independent legal entity to an administrative unit within the larger

. The seat of the VELKD is in

Hanover Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...

. The leading bishop (German: ''Leitender Bischof'') is Gerhard Ulrich.

Leading Bishops of the VELKD

* 1948–1949: Wilhelm Henke * 1949–1955: Hans Meiser * 1955–1969:

Johannes Lilje Johannes (Hanns) Ernst Richard Lilje (20 August 1899, in Hannover – 6 January 1977, in Hannover) was German Lutheran bishop and one of the pioneers of the ecumenical movement. Lilje was general secretary of the German Student Christian Movement ...

* 1969–1975: Hans-Otto Wölber, Land Bishop of Hamburg * 1975–1978:

Eduard Lohse Eduard Model Accessories is a Czech manufacturer of plastic models and finescale model accessories. Formed in 1989 in the city of Most, Eduard began in a rented cellar as a manufacturer of photoetched brass model components. Following the suc ...

* 1978–1981: Gerhard Heintze * 1981–1990: Karlheinz Stoll * 1990–1993: Gerhard Müller * 1993–1999: Horst Hirschler * 1999–2005: Hans Christian Knuth * 2005–2011: Johannes Friedrich * since 2011: Gerhard Ulrich

President of the Church Office of the VELKD

* 1949-1963: Heinz Brunotte * 1963- 1967: Max Keller-Hüschemenger * * 1968 - ? : Hugo Schnell * 1983-2000: Friedrich-Otto Scharbau * 2000-2015: Friedrich Hauschildt ( also Vice-President of the Office of the

(EKD), between 2007 and 2015) * since 2015: Horst Gorski (also Vice-President of EKD since 2015)

Members

Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria (german: Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern) is a Lutheran member church of the Evangelical Church in Germany in the German state of Bavaria. The seat of the church is in Munich. The '' Landesbischo ...

* Evangelical Lutheran State Church of Brunswick *

Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover The Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Hanover (german: Evangelisch-lutherische Landeskirche Hannovers) is a Lutheran church body ''(Landeskirche)'' in the northern German state of Lower Saxony and the city of Bremerhaven covering the territory of th ...

* Evangelical Lutheran Church in Northern Germany *

Evangelical Lutheran Church of Saxony The Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Saxony (''Evangelisch-Lutherische Landeskirche Sachsens'') is one of 20 member Churches of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), covering most of the state of Saxony. Its headquarters are in Dresden, and its b ...

* Evangelical Lutheran State Church of Schaumburg-Lippe *

Evangelical Church in Central Germany The Evangelical Church in Central Germany (German: ''Evangelische Kirche in Mitteldeutschland''; ''EKM'') is a United church body covering most of the German states of Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia and some adjacent areas in Brandenburg and Saxony. ...

(since 2009)

Sources

External links

Official Website
(in German; English informatio
here
Lutheran World Federation members Lutheranism in Germany {{Lutheran-stub