Religion: Cornelia Richter Creates a First

Cornelia Richter was inaugurated on Saturday as the first female bishop of the Evangelical Church A.B. in Austria. Her predecessor Michael Chalupka was bid farewell during the service at the Vienna MuseumsQuartier. The 54-year-old theologian was elected as the new bishop by the synod in the first round of voting at the end of May. Her term of office is twelve years.

Top Politicians Present

Also present were Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen and his wife Doris Schmidauer, Social Minister Korinna Schumann (SPÖ), Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (ÖVP), and Green Party spokesperson Leonore Gewessler. From the Roman Catholic Church, the appointed Archbishop of Vienna Josef Grünwidl and Bishop Manfred Scheuer, who is responsible for ecumenism in the Bishops' Conference, participated.

Who is Cornelia Richter?

Richter, a native of Upper Austria, hails from Bad Goisern and has been teaching in Bonn as a professor since 2012, initially for Systematic Theology. Since 2020, she has held the professorship for Dogmatics and Philosophy of Religion. From 2020 to 2024, she served as the first dean of the Protestant-Theological Faculty, and since 2024, she has been the first female chair of the Senate of the University of Bonn.

Number of Evangelical Christians

In Austria, there are around 237,000 Evangelical Christians A.B. (Augsburg Confession), around 11,000 Evangelical Christians H.B. (Helvetic Confession), and approximately 1,500 Evangelical Methodist Christians. Among the approximately 9 million inhabitants of Austria, Evangelicals make up three percent of the population.

(APA/Red)

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