You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (July 2025)Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the German article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must follow the LLM translation guideline, revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 1,780 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at [[:de:Vereinigte Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche Deutschlands]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|de|Vereinigte Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche Deutschlands}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

The United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany (German: Vereinigte Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche Deutschlands, VELKD) was founded on July 8, 1948, in Eisenach, Germany. Its total membership is 7.3 million people. ^[1] All its member churches belong to the Protestant Church in Germany, with which it co-operates closely. In 2018 it has been reduced from an independent legal entity to an administrative unit within the larger Protestant Church in Germany.

Contents

• Leading Bishops of the VELKD
• President of the Church Office of the VELKD
• Members
• Sources
• External links

The seat of the VELKD is in Hanover. The leading bishop (German: Leitender Bischof) is Ralf Meister.

Leading Bishops of the VELKD

• 1948–1949: Wilhelm Henke
• 1949–1955: Hans Meiser
• 1955–1969: Johannes Lilje
• 1969–1975: Hans-Otto Wölber, Land Bishop of Hamburg
• 1975–1978: Eduard Lohse
• 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
• 2011-2018: Gerhard Ulrich
• since 2018: Ralf Meister

President of the Church Office of the VELKD

• 1949-1963: Heinz Brunotte
• 1963-1967: Max Keller-Hüschemenger
• 1968-1976: Hugo Schnell
• 1976–1982: Günther Gaßmann
• 1983-2000: Friedrich-Otto Scharbau
• 2000-2015: Friedrich Hauschildt ( also Vice-President of the Office of the Protestant Church in Germany (EKD), between 2007 and 2015)
• 2015-2023: Horst Gorski (also Vice-President of EKD between 2015 and 2023) ^[2]
• since 2023: Stephan Schaede (also Vice-President of EKD since 2023) ^[3]

Members

• Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria
• Evangelical Lutheran State Church of Brunswick
• Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover
• Evangelical Lutheran Church in Northern Germany
• Evangelical Lutheran Church of Saxony
• Evangelical Lutheran State Church of Schaumburg-Lippe
• Evangelical Church in Central Germany (since 2009)

Sources

External links

• Official Website (in German; English information here)

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