It will probably be an emotional moment: This Sunday, Heinrich Bedford-Strohm will celebrate his last service as Bavarian Protestant regional bishop in Munich. After twelve years, the 63-year-old says goodbye to St. Matthäus am Sendlinger Tor – the church is one of two Episcopal churches in Bavaria. In the other church, St. Lorenz in Nuremberg, Bedford-Strohm will be relieved of his duties on October 29th and the previous Munich regional bishop Christian Kopp will be installed as the new regional bishop.
When Bedford-Strohm was chosen as the successor to regional bishop Johannes Friedrich by the regional synod in St. Matthäus in the spring of 2011, he was the “Mr. Professor”: With him came a man to the bishop’s chair who had made a name for himself primarily as a scientist and social ethicist . He received his doctorate from the University of Heidelberg in 1992 from Wolfgang Huber, who later became chairman of the EKD council. After vicariate, ordination and a stint as parish priest at the Coburg Church of St. Moriz, he completed his habilitation in systematic theology and finally accepted an appointment at the Otto Friedrich University in Bamberg in 2004 as a professor of systematic theology and contemporary theological issues.
Anyone who expected a spiritualized bookworm in the regional church office was, however, disappointed. Bedford-Strohm came to work by bike, played the violin for his employees at Christmas, spent Christmas Eve in a refugee shelter – and above all, he was the first social media bishop in Germany, equipped with a Facebook profile and a lively communicative spirit. Jogging people in Munich and dog owners now know him as the preacher with a selfie stick from the English Garden, where he speaks a little morning impulse into the cell phone camera every morning since the Corona lockdown. His short videos have a loyal fan base.
The outgoing regional bishop comes from the Franconian Strohm pastoral dynasty; his American wife Deborah brought the Bedford suffix into their marriage. It was not at all foreseeable in 2011 that the Protestant Church could one day lose such a record number of members. Nevertheless, shortly after his election, Bedford-Strohm said he wanted to think about “how we can approach people with curiosity in secular contexts where people have never heard of church.” Because he is convinced: “The old message of the Gospel is more relevant today than ever.”
Bedford-Strohm is a declared representative of so-called public theology – a theology that is convinced that Christianity offers orientation on today’s political and social issues and also obliges Christians to get involved. He consistently followed this approach, and so Bedford-Strohm is still one of the best-known representatives of Protestantism in Germany, even beyond Bavaria. In 2014 he was elected and confirmed once as Council Chairman of the Evangelical Church in Germany. In November 2021 he gave up the presidency of the Council. His term of office included, among other things, the founding of the “United 4 Rescue” alliance and the purchase of the first sea rescue ship. Bedford-Strohm has always defended his commitment to refugees against criticism and has also received death threats for it.
Bedford-Strohm consciously came to the “Zamm Risse – Bavaria against the Right” rally on Odeonsplatz shortly before the state elections as the Bavarian regional bishop, “because I find it unbearable when, in the face of inhuman attitudes, Christianity is also invoked when strangers are under the Keyword ‘Christian West’ will be excluded,” he said. Anyone who misuses the Christian message to exclude them has understood nothing of it.
Dealing with sexual abuse cases contributes to the crisis of trust
Bedford-Strohm and the Catholic Archbishop of Munich, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, are united in their commitment to refugees and against the right. For a few years, the heads of both major denominations – Marx as chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference and Bedford-Strohm as chairman of the EKD council – lived just a few minutes’ walk from each other in downtown Munich. Bedford-Strohm and Marx describe each other as friends, both worked closely together during the Reformation anniversary and afterwards and, among other things, it was thanks to their good relationship with each other that after the Ecumenical Ice Age under Pope Benedict XVI. There is now at least something like a slight thaw between the denominations.
The major crisis of credibility and trust in the churches is also forcing both denominations to become more self-employed, including in the Protestant regional church in Bavaria. “Profile and Concentration”, or PuK for short, is the name of the austerity program that the Protestant church leadership has prescribed for its congregations and offices. “We will continue to be socially active as a church. Many things that the church does are beneficial and meaningful for society,” said Bedford-Strohm to the Evangelical Press Service. “But what is also clear: If more people leave the church, then those who have left the church in particular cannot complain if the church is less able to get involved. Every withdrawal also ensures that the church invests less money in beneficial things such as diakonia can get stuck.”
The handling of cases of sexual abuse also contributes to the crisis of trust. Those affected accuse the Protestant Church of doing far too little, especially when it comes to coming to terms with the situation and taking responsibility. Bedford-Strohm said he has personally been in contact with those affected by abuse for many years. But: “The institutional investigation beyond the individual cases only began when the issue became more widely public.” In any case, the Protestants are lagging behind the Catholic Church. The first major nationwide study on abuse in the Protestant Church and diakonia is to be presented in Hanover at the end of January 2024 – a full six years after the Catholic MHG study. Heinrich Bedford-Strohm will then have already retired as Bavarian regional bishop.
Retirement at Bedford-Strohm doesn’t just mean lying in a hammock in the future. In September 2022, the general assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC) elected Bedford-Strohm as chairman of the central committee, the highest governing body of this interdenominational church federation, which brings together a total of 352 churches with 580 million Christians worldwide. Bedford-Strohm traveled to Ukraine with a WCC delegation in May to mediate between feuding Orthodox churches.
The World Council of Churches will travel to Nigeria for three weeks in November, after which Bedford-Strohm will meet the Archbishop of Sweden in Geneva. From mid-December, he will concentrate on his academic roots again: he will teach at the university in Stellenbosch, South Africa, for two and a half months; he has held an associate professorship there since 2009. So he won’t get bored.