The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Lithuania (Lithuanian: Lietuvos Evangelikų Liuteronų Bažnyčia, ELCL) is a Lutheran church body comprising congregations in Lithuania. The ELCL is a member of the Porvoo Communion and the Lutheran World Federation.
Reflecting its conservative confessional Lutheran stance, in 2000, the ELCL declared itself in full fellowship with the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (U.S.). In 2006 the ELCL reported having 21,000 active members, 52 congregations, and 15 pastors. The current Bishop (Lithuanian: Vyskupas) of the church is the Rt Revd Mindaugas Sabutis.
Around 0.56% of the population of Lithuania are members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Lithuania.
The abbreviated name for the church is in Latin, Unitas Lithuaniae or in Polish, Jednota Litewska (Lithuanian church provincial union).
Famous quotes containing the words evangelical and/or church:
“Chastity is a monkish and evangelical superstition, a greater foe to natural temperance even than unintellectual sensuality.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
“The form of act or thought mattered nothing. The hymns of David, the plays of Shakespeare, the metaphysics of Descartes, the crimes of Borgia, the virtues of Antonine, the atheism of yesterday and the materialism of to-day, were all emanation of divine thought, doing their appointed work. It was the duty of the church to deal with them all, not as though they existed through a power hostile to the deity, but as instruments of the deity to work out his unrevealed ends.”
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