Rolf Koppe

Rolf Koppe (born August 21, 1941 in Mahlum , Gandersheim district (today: Northeim district )) is a Lutheran theologian and pastor emeritus of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hanover . As head of the main department "Ecumenism and work abroad" in the church office of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) in Hanover from 1993 to 2006, he was its bishop abroad .

Life

Rolf Koppe graduated from high school Andreanum in Hildesheim in 1961 and studied Protestant theology in Heidelberg , Vienna and Göttingen . In 1969 and 1970 he was a research assistant at the Lutheran World Federation in Geneva . He was ordained in 1970 and was parish priest in the Pauluskirche in Hanover until 1973 . From 1973 to 1978 he worked as a study inspector at the Predigerseminar in Rotenburg (Wümme) , from 1979 to 1984 he was press spokesman for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hanover and then until 1988 press spokesman and journalism officer in the EKD church office in Hanover.

In 1988 he was appointed regional superintendent of the Göttingen district of the Evangelical Lutheran Regional Church of Hanover. In 1993 he took over the management of the main department III "Ecumenical work and work abroad" in the church office of the EKD and thus became foreign bishop of the Evangelical Church in Germany. He held this office until his retirement on August 31, 2006. In this function, Koppe was a member of the Central Committee and Executive Committee of the World Council of Churches (WCC) and Protestant moderator of the special commission on the participation of the Orthodox Churches in the WCC, which submitted far-reaching proposals to the 2006 assembly in Porto Alegre ( Brazil ) on the content and methods of cooperation which met with great approval. As a foreign bishop, he intensively accompanied the rebirth of the Ev.-Luth. Church in Russia and Other States ( ELKRAS ) and continued the dialogues with the Russian Orthodox Church , the Romanian Orthodox Church and with the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul. Because of the political conflicts in Southeast Europe, he maintained special contacts with the Serbian Orthodox Church . His successor in the church office of the EKD was Martin Schindehütte .

From 2008 to 2013 Koppe held a teaching position for systematic (ecumenical) theology at the Institute for Protestant Theology at the University of Kassel . He is still involved in the Ev. Adult education Göttingen.

Koppe has been born with Ilse Koppe since 1967. Hartmann, teacher of Latin and Russian, married. They have two daughters together, two grandchildren and one granddaughter. You have been living in Göttingen since 2006.

Awards

• 1996: Honorary doctorate from the University of Cluj-Napoca in Transylvania ( Romania )
• Danilov Order of the Russian Orthodox Church

Web links

• Website of the Evangelical Church in Germany
• Literature by and about Rolf Koppe in the catalog of the German National Library