Lutherans hold world assembly

Press, 26 July 1984, Page 10

Lutherans hold world assembly

NZPA-Reuter Budapest An international assembly of Lutherans has opened the first formal plenary debate of a two-week meeting with a keynote address by an East German theologian, reported Hungary’s official M.T.I. news agency. The seventh assembly of the Lutheran World Federation, the first to be held in a Communist State, will debate problems of world peace, racism, and human rights and consider a motion on whether to suspend white South African Lutheran churches. The federation affiliates 97 . churches across the world and meets in a different country every six years. The Lutheran Church in Hungary claims about 430,000 members. An East German theologian Klaus-Peter Hertzsch,

told the assembly that Christians had a mission to work for the future of mankind, for other people, peace, justice, and love, said M.T.I. Mr Hertzsch said that the world faced the danger of a new conflict and the question of war or peace was decisive. “The train has started but the points can still be shifted,” he said. The assembly opened with a service attended by more than 10,000 people, the first to be televised in Hungary and one of the biggest religious gatherings to .be held under Communist rule. The Hungarian Government took steps to suppress’ Church power when the Communists took over after World War II but in the last 10 years it has adopted a more tolerant attitude.