- Kurt Scharf
Kurt Scharf (
October 21 ,1902 -March 28 ,1990 ) was a Germanclergy man andbishop of theEvangelical Church in Germany .Life
Kurt Scharf was born in Landsberg an der Warthe,
Prussia (nowGorzów Wielkopolski inPoland ),. After completing hisAbitur he studiedprotestant theology inBerlin and was a member of theStudentenverbindung "Verein Deutscher Studenten Berlin" (a member of theVerband der Vereine Deutscher Studenten ). In the 1930s he worked as apastor in Sachsenhausen,Oranienburg and as such had occasional opportunities to tend to the inmates of theconcentration camp there. After the war as president of theBrandenburg Synod of theConfessing Church he became the chairman of the conference of "Landesbruderräte" (councils of the Confessing Church in individual states). In 1945 he was appointed provost and leader of the Brandenburg division of theconsistory of the Evangelical Church in Berlin. In 1952 he was given anhonorary doctorate by the Faculty of Theology atHumboldt University . From 1966 to 1976 he was the elected bishop of theEvangelical Church of Berlin-Brandeburg , although since 1961 the bishop's area of responsibility and influence had been restricted toWest Berlin . As a result of this he functioned as the bishop of the Western regional synod from 1972. Between 1957 and 1960, Scharf was chairman of the council of the Evangelical Church of the Union (EKU) (at that time one of the principal bodies of German Protestant churches), between 1961 and 1967 chairman of the council of Evangelical Churches in Germany (EKD) (the umbrella organisation ofLutheran andReformed churches in Germany). OnMarch 28 ,1990 he died en route toSchlachtensee hospital in Berlin.Scharf contributed to the "Ostdenkschrift" of the EKD, the first recognition (in 1965) by a significant German organisation of the
Oder-Neisse Line . He was awarded the Copernicus Medal of the People's Republic ofPoland in 1973 for his support for German reconciliation with Poland, as well as an honorary doctorate from the Christian Academy of theUniversity of Warsaw . Scharf, who for a time was also a member of the central committee of theWorld Council of Churches , was a strong supporter of the ecumenical ideal. As vice-president of the United World Bible Societies he was a strong advocate of spreading theBible throughout the world. Scharf also took on many difficult cases of providing spiritual welfare to prisoners, for example to Germans imprisoned forwar crimes and to imprisoned members of theBaader-Meinhof Group .Bibliography
* "Vom Herrengeheimnis der Wahrheit" (On the Lord's Secret of the Truth) -
Festschrift for Heinrich Vogel, 1962
* "Für ein politisches Gewissen der Kirche" (For a Political Conscience of the Church) (ed. W. Erk), 1972
* "Streit mit der Macht", (Argument with Power), 1983
* "Widerstehen und Versöhnen. Rückblicke und Ausblicke" (Resistance and Reconciliation. Reviews and Prospects) (ed. Jo Krummacher), 1987; 2nd edition 1988External links
* [http://dispatch.opac.ddb.de/DB=4.1/REL?PPN=118606514 Literature by and about Kurt Scharf]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.