Peter Urie

Peter Urie (born January 27, 1955 in Salzwedel ; † September 15, 2005 ) was Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Republic of Kazakhstan (ELCRK) from 2000 to 2004 .

Life

After training as a foundry worker, Urie began studying preaching in 1975 at the theological seminary of the Evangelical Gnadauer Community Association in Falkenberg. Since 1978 he worked in the community districts of Bitterfeld and Wittenberg - Graefenhainichen in the Evangelical Church of the ecclesiastical province of Saxony and was then pastor in Radis until 1997 .

In 1997, Urie was released from office for the construction of the Protestant churches in the successor states of the Soviet Union . As part of his work for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Central Asia (ELKRAS), he worked in Moscow as pastor of the parish "St. Peter and Paul" and was appointed provost for Central Russia.

In December 2000 he was elected bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Republic of Kazakhstan (ELCRC). The inauguration took place in June 2001 in the Kazakh capital Astana (since 2019 Nur-Sultan) (today Nur-Sultan). Urie resigned from the office of bishop in September 2004 due to a serious illness. He was succeeded by Yuri Novgorodov .

The focus of the work as a bishop was the preservation of the Protestant Church, whose members are almost exclusively Russian- Germans. As a result of the strong emigration, many of the originally 288 parishes have died out since 1993, and in 2005 the number of parishes was only 52. ​​Urie was committed to preserving the prayer house in Astana, which is threatened with demolition, as one of the few remaining historical buildings in the city .

Peter Urie was married to Elena Urie. He had two daughters from his first marriage.

In 2004 the documentary filmmaker Katrin Hartig accompanied the bishop in his work. Your film was released under the title Russlanddeutsche - Deutschlandrussen: In Search of Home .

Web links

• Obituary of the Martin Luther Association