Who are we?

Brief History and Purpose of the ELC

After the Second World War, the confessional Evangelical Lutheran Churches begun to meet regularly as what they called “Mission Conferences”. In 1986 they took the title “European Lutheran Conference”. In 1999 they adopted the present “Guiding Principles”. Every two or three years, a conference is held in a country where a member church is located. The list of conferences shows how many of them have been held since 1960 and what the themes were. Each conference is organized and led by the ELC Steering Committee in cooperation with the local church.

The purpose of these conferences is described as following:
“The European Lutheran Conference (ELC) is the association of Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Churches in Europe which have declared their adhesion.” (Preamble)
“The member churches hold the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the infallible word of God and recognise the Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, as contained in The Book of Concord of 1580 as the correct and binding exposition of these Scriptures.” (Art. 1: Confession)
“The European Lutheran Conference promotes unity, fellowship and co-operation between the member churches. It does this through sharing in detailed studies in the areas of theology and evangelism.
It also seeks church fellowship between its members and the churches with guest status.
Declaration of church fellowship is the responsibility of individual churches.” (Guiding Priciples, Art. 2: Aims and Duties)