The Head of the Global Ministries Department in the EKD Churchwide Office, Executive Director Reverend Frank Kopania, has been appointed Bishop of the Protestant Church in Germany (EKD) and as such Head of the “Ecumenism and Global Ministries” Department of the EKD Churchwide Office. He will simultaneously take over from Bishop Petra Bosse-Huber the office of Theological Vice President in the EKD Churchwide Office and thus the leadership of the office of the Union of Protestant Churches in the EKD (UEK).
This appointment by the EKD Council is being made with the cooperation of the UEK Presidium and the EKD Church Conference. Frank Kopania will succeed Petra Bosse-Huber on July 1, 2025, who will retire on June 30.
The Chair of the EKD Council, Bishop Kirsten Fehrs, is pleased with this decision and declares: “How wonderful that Frank Kopania, a person with ecumenical and church-political experience, will help shape and assume responsibility for these important areas of work in the EKD and UEK in the future. I wish him God’s rich blessing!”
Frank Kopania was born in 1966 in Bad Oeynhausen (North Rhine-Westphalia) and grew up in the Giessen area of Upper Hesse. After studying Protestant theology, philosophy, and political science, he completed both theological examinations in the Protestant Church in Hesse and Nassau (EKHN). Frank Kopania served as pastor in Frohnhausen (Eder) from 1998 to 2008. From 2008 to 2013, he was the EKD’s overseas pastor in the German-American congregation at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Miami (Florida).
In 2013, Frank Kopania was appointed by the Protestant Church in Hesse and Nassau (EKHN) as personnel officer for pastoral ministry in the EKHN church office in Darmstadt. In 2018, the EKD Council appointed Kopania as head of the Department for Global Ministries in the EKD Church Office.
From 2011 to 2013, Frank Kopania was President of the German Evangelical Lutheran Conference in North America (DELKINA). From 2018 to 2024, Kopania served as a deputy council member of the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe (CPCE), based in Vienna, and simultaneously as a member of the Governing Board of the Conference of European Churches (CEC), based in Brussels. At the CEC General Assembly in Tallinn in 2024, he was elected as vice president to the three-member Presidium of the CEC. Since 2019 as EKD-representative, Frank Kopania has been a member of the Broadcasting Council of Deutsche Welle (DW) and deputy chair of the DW Academy Committee.
“As Christians in the global ecumenical community, we are called upon to raise our voices for freedom of religion and expression, for respect for human rights, and for raising awareness of the fatal consequences of climate change for people and nature. Based on our fundamental Christian values, it is important to articulate our unconditional respect for refugees and strangers even more clearly. Contributing to these challenging tasks of the EKD in our global ecumenical relations is a matter close to my heart,” said the 58-year-old theologian today in Hanover.
Hannover, 24th March 2025