Bishop Koppe: We must work for a new international legal order

Manuel Quintero, QUITO, Ecuador, April 30, 2004

The need to overcome a warrior perspective and the use of armed conflicts as instruments Taxi Heathrow Airport to overcome differences between nations was emphasized here by the Rev. Dr. Rolf Koppe, head of the Ecumenism and Foreign Relations Department of the German Evangelical Church (EKD).

Bishop Koppe, who traveled to Andean nations this April with the Rev. Branco Nikolitsch, responsible for EKD’s Latin American relations, said that Churches should work with the United Nations to encourage a new international legal order that is not based on military might.

“In our contacts with the Churches we have seen that this is one of the new and most important challenges: to cooperate and support efforts to establish respect and the practice of international law through the United Nations Organization,” he said.

The Church leader visited Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, countries where he met with German speaking Evangelical congregations and other Churches and Christian bodies.

Since 1995, when he first visited the continent, Bishop Koppe has also visited Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay to “keep contacts alive with German speaking congregations and historic Churches with whom we have maintained close collaboration for a long time.” Last year he also visited Colombia and Venezuela.

In a conversation this Friday in the headquarters of the Latin American Council of Churches in Quito, with CLAI Secretary General Pastor Israel Batista, Bishop Kroppe was interested in the main themes on the agenda of Churches as well as the emphasis CLAI places on the ecumenical ministry.

He also referred to the decline in membership and the reduction of income and how factors like these are forcing some Churches to sell their temples.

In the North Elbia region, close to Hamburg, this could mean that the Evangelical Lutheran Church sells a third of its temples in the next 10 years,” he said.

The Evangelical Church of the North Elbia has more than 2.5 million faithful.

Bishop Kroppe said that he is opposed to selling these Churches to Islamic congregations, something that has taken place in England and Holland.