News Brief

The main governing body of the Lutheran World Federation began a meeting in Geneva on 22 October at which a successor to the current LWF general secretary is scheduled to be elected in a closed-door meeting - writes Peter Kenny.

At the July 2008 council meeting at Arusha in Tanzania the LWF general secretary the Rev Ishmael Noko, a theologian from Zimbabwe, announced that he would conclude his service in his post at the end of October 2010.

Noko is an ordained pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Zimbabwe. He became LWF general secretary in 1994, and was re-elected for a second term in 2004. To date all the heads of the LWF have been men.

The theme of 22-27 October meeting is "Upholding human dignity: Confronting human trafficking". The council is responsible for LWF business between the meetings of its highest governing body, its assembly, which meets every six-to-seven years.

The council has 48 members elected by the assembly and meets every 12 to 18 months.

The next head of the 140 churches from 79 nations in the Lutheran communion made up of 68.5 million people will take up the post following the next LWF assembly in Stuttgart in July 2010.

The election for the post by the council is scheduled following a report from a search committee that was set up to sift candidates for the position. The process to date has not been made public with no names being made known.

"The report's presentation as well as the election will take place in closed session," an LWF spokesperson told Ecumenical News International.

The Finnish Lutheran weekly newspaper Kotimaa earlier in October reported dissatisfaction among some church members who said that the lack of transparency in the process was not appropriate means of communication in the modern era.

[With acknowledgements to ENI. Ecumenical News International is jointly sponsored by the World Council of Churches, the Lutheran World Federation, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, and the Conference of European Churches.]