Maria Jepsen (born 19 January 1945, in

Bad Segeberg Bad Segeberg (; Low German: Sebarg) is a German town of 16,000 inhabitants, located in the state of Schleswig-Holstein, capital of the district (Kreis) Segeberg. It is situated approximately northeast of Hamburg, and west of Lübeck. It is famo ...

) is the former

bishop of Hamburg This list of bishops, seniors, and superintendents of Hamburg records the spiritual heads of the Lutheran church in Hamburg. Originally the Lutheran church in Hamburg formed a state church established by Johannes Bugenhagen's church order on 15 ...

in the

North Elbian Evangelical Lutheran Church The North Elbian Evangelical Lutheran Church (german: link=no, Nordelbische Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche; NEK) was a Lutheran regional church in Northern Germany which emerged from a merger of four churches in 1977 and merged with two more churc ...

. On 4 April 1992 the synod of the

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

Ambit elected her

bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...

, the first

Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...

woman to be a bishop worldwide, and since then she has been re-elected for a second ten-year period. On 16 July 2010 she resigned due to allegations that she did not act on information about an abuse case in her ambit of the church in 1999.

References

External links

Official Biography of Maria Jepsen
(German) 1945 births Living people People from Segeberg Bishops of Hamburg Women Lutheran bishops 20th-century German Lutheran bishops 21st-century German Lutheran bishops {{Germany-reli-bio-stub