Stefano R. Moshi

Stefano Ruben Moshi (born May 6, 1906 in Mamba-Kotela , Moshi District, † August 14, 1976 in Nairobi ) was an Evangelical Lutheran theologian and senior bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania (ELCT).

Life

Moshi was born to Christian parents in the north of what was then German East Africa . His father Ruben Moshi was the first native missionary of the Leipzig Mission . After the First World War he attended elementary school in Kotela until 1922 and then worked as a teacher at various schools. From 1926 to 1932 he graduated from the Marangu Teacher Training College, where he then taught himself as a lecturer. In 1947 he enrolled in the Lwandai Theological Seminary and was ordained as a pastor in 1949. Until 1955 he was again a lecturer at the Marangu Teacher Training College and at the same time served as the pastor in the Mamba parish. In 1952 he completed a six-month course at the Lutheran Bible Institute in Minneapolis . From July 25th to August 3rd of the same year he took part in the full congress of the Lutheran World Federation in Hanover .

In 1955, Moshi was added to the President of the Lutheran Church of Northern Tanganyika in support and in 1956 was elected vice president. In 1958 he was elected the first African President of this church, which later became the northern diocese of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania. In 1961 the synod decided to introduce the title of bishop .

On May 17, 1964 , Hanns Lilje , the leading bishop of the United Evangelical Lutheran Church in Germany , introduced him to the northern diocese for life. Moshi was a member of the Executive Committee of the Lutheran World Federation from 1963 to 1970 and was at times one of its vice-presidents. Also in 1963 he became one of the presidents of the All Africa Conference of Churches . From 1965 to 1976 he was chairman of the National Christian Council.

In 1968 he was appointed chief bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania. Moshi maintained close relationships with churches and mission societies in Germany, which he visited several times. In September 1975 he took part in the inauguration of the Bavarian regional bishop Johannes Hanselmann in Nuremberg. In June 1976 he made his last trip to the Federal Republic and died a little later in the Mater Misericordiae Hospital in Nairobi. He was buried in the cemetery of his home parish Mamba-Kotela.

literature

• Evangelical Press Service No. 158/1976