Konrad Raiser (born 25 January 1938) is a former General Secretary of the

World Council of Churches The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a worldwide Christian inter-church organization founded in 1948 to work for the cause of ecumenism. Its full members today include the Assyrian Church of the East, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, most juri ...

(WCC).

Biography

Born in

Magdeburg, Germany Magdeburg (; nds, label= Low Saxon, Meideborg ) is the capital and second-largest city of the German state Saxony-Anhalt. The city is situated at the Elbe river. Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor and founder of the Archdiocese of Magdeb ...

on 25 January 1938, Raiser spent his childhood in

Schwerin Schwerin (; Mecklenburgisch dialect, Mecklenburgian Low German: ''Swerin''; Latin: ''Suerina'', ''Suerinum'') is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Germany, second-largest city of the northeastern States of Germany, German ...

Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...

and

Bad Godesberg Bad Godesberg ( ksh, Bad Jodesbersch) is a borough ('' Stadtbezirk'') of Bonn, southern North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. From 1949 to 1999, while Bonn was the capital of West Germany, most foreign embassies were in Bad Godesberg. Some buildings ar ...

. After graduating from high school in

Tübingen Tübingen (, , Swabian: ''Dibenga'') is a traditional university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer rivers. about one in thr ...

in 1957, Raiser spent six months working in a steel mill in

Dortmund Dortmund (; Westphalian nds, Düörpm ; la, Tremonia) is the third-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne and Düsseldorf, and the eighth-largest city of Germany, with a population of 588,250 inhabitants as of 2021. It is the la ...

, in a programme organised by his church, the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD). His father

Ludwig Raiser Ludwig Raiser (27 October 1904 – 13 June 1980) was a German legal scholar. In 1961, he was one of the signatories of the Memorandum of Tübingen on West German foreign policy. He was President of the Synod of the Evangelical Church in Germany f ...

, a well-known professor of law, was for some years president of the national synod of the EKD. Raiser began studying theology in

in 1957, moving on to the theological school in Bethel, and later to the universities of Heidelberg and Zürich. He concluded his academic theological education in

in February 1963, was ordained in May 1964 and finished pastoral training in 1965.and started working with the World Council of Churches, first in the department for Faith and Order. He later became the Deputy General Secretary. Leaving the WCC in 1983, Raiser began to teach theology at

Bochum University The Ruhr University Bochum (, ) is a public research university located in the southern hills of the central Ruhr area, Bochum, Germany. It was founded in 1962 as the first new public university in Germany after World War II. Instruction began in ...

in Germany until he returned again to Geneva in 1992. In August 1992, the WCC Central Committee elected Raiser as general secretary for a five-year term. He assumed his responsibilities in January 1993, and in September 1996 was re-elected for a second five-year term which ran until the end of 2002. Noting the press of business facing the Council due to probable changes to be recommended by the Special Commission, and other items, the Central Committee, meeting in

Potsdam Potsdam () is the capital and, with around 183,000 inhabitants, largest city of the German state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of B ...

in 2001, extended his term by one year to December 2003. Raiser holds honorary doctorates from the Budapest Theological Academy (1992) and the

University of Geneva The University of Geneva (French: ''Université de Genève'') is a public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded in 1559 by John Calvin as a theological seminary. It remained focused on theology until the 17th centu ...

(1996). He is the author of four books. His most recent is ''To Be the Church - Challenges and Hopes for a New Millennium'', published by the WCC in 1997. Before that he wrote ''Identität und Sozialität'' published in 1971, ''Ökumene im Übergang'', published in 1989 (of which an English translation, ''Ecumenism in Transition'', was published in 1991), and ''Wir stehen noch am Anfang - Ökumene in einer veränderten Welt'', published in 1994. Since 1970, he has written numerous articles and essays on theological and ecumenical subjects, including four entries in the ''Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement'' (WCC Publications, 1991), for which he was also a member of the editorial board. As general secretary of the WCC, he was editor of ''The Ecumenical Review''.

Family

In 1967, he married the daughter of the physicist

Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker Carl Friedrich Freiherr von Weizsäcker (; 28 June 1912 – 28 April 2007) was a German physicist and philosopher. He was the longest-living member of the team which performed nuclear research in Germany during the Second World War, under ...

and niece of the future first president of unified

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 ...

, Baron

Richard von Weizsäcker Richard Karl Freiherr von Weizsäcker (; 15 April 1920 – 31 January 2015) was a German politician ( CDU), who served as President of Germany from 1984 to 1994. Born into the aristocratic Weizsäcker family, who were part of the German nobilit ...

, Dr. Elisabeth von Weizsäcker. The Raisers have four sons: Martin (b. 1967), Ulrich (b. 1970), Simon (b. 1974) and Christoph (b. 1978). Both Baron

(1964-1970 & 1979-1981) and his niece Dr. Elisabeth Raiser (2001–2003) were Presidents of the

Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchentag The German Evangelical Church Assembly (German ''Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchentag'', DEKT) is an assembly of lay members of the Evangelical Church in Germany, that organises biennial events of faith, culture and political discussion. History ...

(German Evangelical Church Congress).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Raiser, Konrad 1938 births Living people German Protestant clergy German expatriates in Switzerland People of the World Council of Churches Grand Crosses with Star and Sash of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany