Commission PRE EKD

The meeting took place with a new squad. The EKD was represented by Rev. Annette Kurschus and Rev. Dirk Stelter, who is the adviser of EKD for Eastern, Western and Southeastern Europe. The PRE was represented by the president of the PRE and the director oft the PRE Rev. Grzegorz Giemza.

Rev. Annette Kurschus is Präses (President) of the Evangelical Church of Westfalia (EKvW), The EKvW is also a partner church of the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Poland, but Rev. Annette Kurschus was in Poland as a member of the bipartite commission of PRE and EKD.

The Contact-Commission of the PRE and the EKD exists for 43 years. (It began its work on 30th of may 1974.) To its squad belong representatives of the Evangelical Church in Germany and the Polish Ecumenical Council.

During the meeting the comission’s work in the past years has been recapitulated and an agenda for the future has been set up. The subject which will be continued and which is allready in work by the commission for 40 years is reconciliation. An example of work for the cause of reconciliation is the project „Reconciliation in Europe – tasks of the churches in Ukraine, Belarus, Poland and Germany“. The commission emphasized how important it is, to engage the youth into this domain.

Another topic is the question of refugees and the possibilities of exchanging expiercences between the Polish Chruches belonging to PRE and German Churches. The comission will also deal with professional support of ordained and not-ordained co-workers of the church. Hereby the Churches will have the possibility of enlarging thier experiecne in this field.

During the meeting in Warsaw has been decided, that the commission will meet twice a year and the next meeting will be in Bielefeld.