Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria (German: Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern) is a Lutheran member church of the Evangelical Church in Germany in the German state of Bavaria.

The seat of the church is in Munich. The Landesbischof (bishop) of the church is Dr Heinrich Bedford-Strohm. There are six regional bishops (Regionalbischöfe). The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria is one of 22 Lutheran, United Protestant and Reformed churches of the EKD. The church has 2,430,191 members (2015) in 1,540 parishes. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria is a member church of the United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany, the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe and of the Lutheran World Federation. The Church runs a conference venue at Tutzing called Evangelische Akademie Tutzing. The most prominent churches of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria are St. Matthäus Church in Munich and St. Lorenz Church in Nuremberg where new state bishops get inaugurated. Munich is predominantly Catholic, whereas Nuremberg is a Lutheran stronghold. The ordination of women has been allowed.

During the Protestant Reformation, Bavaria (consisting at that point only of what is today called Altbayern) remained predominantly Roman Catholic. In the early 19th century, the largely Protestant Palatinate and Franconia were annexed to the Kingdom of Bavaria, and all Protestant churches in the kingdom were administratively subordinated in 1817 to an upper consistory in Munich and an umbrella, the Protestant Church in the Kingdom of Bavaria (German: Protestantische Kirche im Königreiche Bayern), was founded in 1821. At first, this church consisted of Lutheran and Calvinist congregations in today's Bavaria and congregations of united Protestant confession (as of 1817) in the then Bavarian Governorate of the Palatinate on the left bank of the river Rhine. Since 1848 the Palatine congregations formed a separate church body (United Protestant Evangelical Christian Church of the Palatinate (Palatine State Church)).

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