North Elbian Evangelical Lutheran Church

The North Elbian Evangelical Lutheran Church (German: Nordelbische Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche; NEK) was a Lutheran regional church in Northern Germany which emerged from a merger of four churches in 1977 and merged with two more churches in 2012. The NEK largely covered the area of the states of Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg where it was the most important Christian denomination. It had 2.1 million members (as of 2006) in 595 parishes, constituting 46% of the population in its ambit.

In May 2012 the NEK, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Mecklenburg and the Pomeranian Evangelical Church merged into Evangelical Lutheran Church in Northern Germany.

The NEK was a full member of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), the United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany (VELKD), and the Lutheran World Federation (joined 1977). The church was also a member of the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe.

The North Elbian Evangelical Lutheran Church was founded in 1977 by the merger of four former state churches:

It is named after its ambit mostly located north of the River Elbe. In 1992 Maria Jepsen was the first woman to become a bishop in the North Elbian Evangelical Lutheran Church. At Pentecost 2012 it merged with the Evangelical Lutheran State Church of Mecklenburg and the Pomeranian Evangelical Church to form the new Evangelical Lutheran Church in Northern Germany.

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