"Ecumenical community strengthens credibility"

"By one Spirit we were all baptised into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and have all been made to drink into one Spirit." (Galatians 3:28)". The Church, which we confess in the Creed, is the body of Christ. It includes all who believe and are baptised. It does not end at the border with another denomination, another culture, another country, another continent. That is why every existing church is the whole church, but not the whole church. It is full, but not complete.

And so mutual relationships between churches - i.e. ecumenism - are part of the essence of every church. In this sense, the first Christians already visited each other - even over long distances - and wrote letters to each other, as the Acts of the Apostles and the letters in the New Testament testify. In addition, Christians do not exist for themselves alone. The resurrected Christ says to the disciples: "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, so I send you" (Gospel of John 20:21).

Every Christian is sent by Christ and has a mission. And not as an individual, but as part of a community, as part of the church. Christians, congregations and churches are part of the mission of the triune God into the world. This mission is aimed at peace, at holistic shalom. A church is credible if it allows itself to be included in this mission within the framework of the worldwide Church of Jesus Christ.

With this in mind, the new constitution of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover from 2020 states in Article 1: "Through the Gospel, it [the regional church] is called to public witness, to the service of neighbourly love and to the fellowship of the church. [...] Proclamation, witness and service shall take place in communion with other Christian churches."

Earlier constitutions of the regional church did not focus on church fellowship across denominations and continents. In the past, there was a sense of demarcation towards other denominations and a certain arrogance towards the churches of the Global South, many of which had emerged from the mission of the churches of the North.

The insights of the ecumenical movement and the world mission conferences also had an impact on the regional church in Hanover. In the 1980s, many church districts began to build partnerships with churches in the Global South, especially those with which the regional church was also connected. This was supported by the regional church and the Evangelical-Lutheran Missionary Organisation in Lower Saxony (ELM), which continues to competently support the international ecumenical activities of the regional church at all levels to this day.

Especially in a world that is moving ever closer together as a result of globalisation, the importance of international ecumenism for our regional church is increasing: we can celebrate together with other churches, learn from and with each other, enrich and correct each other, support each other, act together and set signs of God's shalom. Ecumenical fellowship strengthens the credibility
of what our regional church stands for.

Oberkirchenrat Dirk Stelter is head of the "Mission, Ecumenism, Religions" department in the regional church office of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover and a member of the ELM Mission Committee. He was elected to the
Council of the Lutheran World Federation in 2023.