European United Methodists elect new bishop
|
|
Bishop Patrick Streiff |
| No Long Caption Available for this Story |
April 18, 2005 By United Methodist News Service* A new bishop has been elected to lead the United Methodist Church’s Central Conference of Central and Southern Europe. The Rev. Patrick Streiff, 49, was consecrated during an April 17 service at Bern Cathedral in Switzerland. He will succeed Bishop Heinrich Bolleter, who will formally retire in May 2006. Streiff
was elected to a four-year term on the second ballot, receiving 66 of a
possible 73 votes, during the central conference meeting. The Central
Conference of Central and Southern Europe includes 14 countries in
Europe and North Africa. A
native of Switzerland, Streiff received his theological education at
the United Methodist Seminary in Reutlingen, Germany, and has a
doctorate from the University of Bern. He and his wife, Heidi, are the
parents of four children. Ordained
to the ministry in 1984, he has been the pastor of congregations in
Lausanne, Neuchatel, and Biel, Switzerland. He has been in charge
of the Methodist Center for Theological Education in French, located in
Lausanne, and is also a lecturer on modern church history at the
Theological Faculty of the University of Lausanne.
Streiff
has close ties to the United Methodist Board of Higher Education and
Ministry, of which he is a director, and to the denomination’s Board of
Global Ministries. He has worked on a curriculum for French-speaking
pastors in West Africa sponsored by the two agencies, and is part of a
team exploring the possibility of a French-language United Methodist
hymnal. He has assisted the mission board on a Book of Discipline
(church law) for Cambodia. Countries
covered by the United Methodist Church in Central and Southern Europe
are Albania, Algeria, Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic,
France, Hungary, Macedonia, Poland, Serbia-Montenegro, Slovak Republic,
Switzerland and Tunisia.
*Information for this story was provided by the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries. News media contact: Linda Bloom, New York, (646) 369-3759 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
|
Korean News
