Bethlehem / Geneva
11.01.2018.
Travelling a long road together: LWF General Secretary Martin Junge and former LWF President Munib Younan. Photo: ELCJHL/Ben Gray
Munib Younan retires, stepping down as bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL)
“It is quite difficult to find the right moment to leave office, yet one can find the right attitude, that is, entrusting one’s life and the church’s witness to the one in whose hands it can rest, namely God,” said the General Secretary of the Lutheran World Federation, Rev. Dr. Martin Junge, while in Bethlehem, thanking Bishop Munib A. Younan for his service to the LWF and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land.
On behalf of the Lutheran World Federation and its current president, Archbishop Panti Filibus Musa, General Secretary Junge thanked Bishop Younan for his dedication and loving service to the church, as well as for the many gifts the LWF had received as a global communion of churches. Younan was LWF President from 2010 to 2017.
More than 500 guests attended the solemn event in Bethlehem on 10 January this year, honoring the bishop for his 42 years of ministry in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land and for his active involvement in advancing ecumenism. After listening to several speakers giving tributes, Younan said that “the office should be passed on and the evangelical Lutheran bishop will retire in accordance with the church’s constitution, but the calling to serve the love of the gospel cannot retire. God’s calling never ends! For this reason I will continue to be a servant of the gospel, whatever God may call me to do next. I am out of office, but not out of mission.”
“My love for this global communion has deepened”
Younan was elected LWF President at the federation’s eleventh assembly in Stuttgart, Germany, in July 2010, and served in his office until May 2017, when the twelfth assembly, held in Windhoek, Namibia, elected Archbishop Panti Filibus Musa of the Lutheran Church of Christ in Nigeria as Younan’s successor.
When Bishop Younan addressed the assembly as president in May 2017, he announced: “These years of ministry have brought me, my congregation, and my family many remarkable experiences. While in this office, my love for the global communion has deepened.”
“These years of ministry have brought me, my congregation, and my family many remarkable experiences. While in this office, my love for the global communion has deepened,” said Bishop Dr. Munib A. Younan.
The biggest event during Younan’s time as LWF President was the celebration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation and the joint Catholic and Lutheran Reformation commemoration events in Lund and Malmö in October 2016.
Younan’s involvement with the LWF began in 1981. From 1981 to 1984, Younan was involved in the Youth Committee; from 1990 to 1997 he was a Council advisor; from 1997 to 2003 he held the positions of Council member and vice-chair of the board of trustees of the Institute for Ecumenical Research in Strasbourg, and was also vice-chair of the LWF Program Committee responsible for mission and development. From 2003 to 2010, Younan served as LWF Vice-President for the Asia region, as well as a member of the Council and the LWF Executive Committee.
Bishop Younan, a high-level lecturer and speaker, is invited as a Palestinian Christian to speak because of the perspective of just peace he advocates. Younan is also actively engaged in promoting interreligious dialogue, ecumenism, and reconciliation in the Middle East and on the international stage. His work has been recognized with several honors and awards, the most recent of which is the Niwano Peace Prize, which he received in Tokyo, Japan, in July 2017 (photo below).
The newly elected bishop Sani Ibrahim Azar will be installed in office on 12 January this year
Sani Ibrahim Azar is the newly elected bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land. The fifty-six-year-old theologian has served as a pastor at the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in the Old City of Jerusalem for 30 years.
Source: Lutheran World Federation news
Photo: Lutheran World Federation (LWF), ELCJHL, NPF