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Hans Ulrich Anke to Be the New President of the EKD Church Office

Christoph Thiele to succeed Anke as head of the legal department

March 29, 2010

Hans Ulrich Anke will take over as president of the Church Office of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) on December 1, 2010. Anke, 41, who holds an LLD degree, will succeed retiring president Hermann Barth, 64, who has held the office since March 2006. Until now Anke has run the EKD main department for legal matters and finance. Anke will be 42 when he takes office and will thus be the youngest president ever to head the Church Office in Hanover. The appointment decided by the EKD Council was approved last week by the Church Conference. In accordance with the EKD constitution, the Council is required to consult with the Church Conference when filling the post of Church Office president. Hans Ulrich Anke was born in Hanover on September 1, 1968. After completing his studies in law and Romance linguistics in Göttingen, Germany and Caen, France, he was a research assistant for the Chair of Public Law and Church Law at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg under Professor Karl-Hermann Kästner from 1995 to 1998. He then served as a junior lawyer at the Lübeck Regional Court [Landgericht] from 1998 to 2000. In 1999, Anke received his doctorate in law for his dissertation on the redefinition of church-state relations in the former Eastern German Länder through agreements between church and state. Hans Ulrich Anke worked from 2000 to 2008 as a legal specialist in the Church Office of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover. He was named Oberkirchenrat in 2003 and Oberlandeskirchenrat in 2007 (both referring to his membership in high consistories). Anke has been the vice president for legal affairs of the EKD Church Office since August 2008, running the main department for legal matters and finance as well as the legal department. Oberkirchenrat Christoph Thiele will succeed Anke as head of the legal department of the EKD Church Office in December 2010. Thiele, who was born in 1961 and also holds a doctorate in law, joined the legal department of the EKD Church Office in January 2000 and has been its assistant director since December 2006. Thiele worked for the EKD Institute for Church Law in Göttingen from 1993 to 1999. Hanover, March 29, 2010 Press Office of the EKD Reinhard Mawick The EKD Church Office, located in Hanover's Herrenhäuser Strasse, functions as a secretariat for the Synod, the Council and the Church Conference of the approximately 25-million strong Evangelical Church in Germany.




 


 

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