TheEvangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania (ELCT;Swahili:Kanisa la Kiinjili la Kilutheri Tanzania) is the federation ofLutheran churches inTanzania and one of the largestLutheran denominations in the world, with more than 6 million members, or 13% of the Tanzanian population. It is the second largestLutheran church in the world and the largest Lutheran church inEast Africa.[3][4]
The ELCT is an organization which reaches out to the people of Tanzania offeringworship opportunities,Christian education, and numerous social services, including disaster response, healthcare, andAIDS education and relief.[5]
The first Lutheran missionaries arrived in what was thenGerman East Africa in 1887, when the Evangelical Missionary Society for East Africa (EMS), based in Berlin, Germany, established a missionary station atKigamboni,Dar es Salaam. The second group of missionaries was also from Germany, entering via South Africa and settling in theSouthern Highlands region of Tanzania. Similar missions from Germany continued to arrive in the region continuously throughout the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. This mission activity continued in spite of the interruption of theHehe Wars in 1891, theMaji Maji Uprising of 1905–1907,World War I, andWorld War II.
In 1938, seven Lutheran churches were loosely gathered into the Federation of Lutheran Churches in Tanganyika. The member churches then merged to become the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania.[6]
In 1964,Johannes Lilje, then presiding bishop of theUnited Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany, consecrated Stefano Moshi, who had been elected as the first president of the newly formed church body and who had been an advocate for the establishment of episcopacy, as the first presiding bishop of the ELCT.[7]
The seat of the church is inArusha. It is financed mainly from collections and donations as well as through project grants from churches in theGlobal North.[8]
The ELCT is led by apresiding bishop, or "Mkuu", who is elected to serve four year terms,[9] and 24 bishops who preside over their localdioceses. The presiding bishop is elected for a four-year term from amongst the bishops of the dioceses. The ELCT's current presiding bishop is Alex Malasusa.
The ELCT employs 1360 ordainedpastors (28 of them overseas), 3000 layevangelists, and 300 community officers to aid the work of the church (2014 figures). Women are not ordained in all ELCT dioceses; however, as of 1990, the national church does ordain women. Ordination of women is a sensitive topic in the ELCT and the church is largely split. Currently, local dioceses make their own decision on whether to ordain women or not.
The ELCT is one of the fastest growing churches in the world, with an annual growth inbaptized members of around 8%.
Social service programming is central to the mission of the ELCT. The social services offered by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania include the following departments:[12]
Education (Secondary and University)
Finance and Administration
Health and Medical Care (21 hospitals and numerous local pharmacies)
Like other Lutheran church bodies, the ELCT confesses twosacraments: Communion (or theEucharist) andHoly Baptism (includinginfant baptism). Confession and absolution is often included as a sacrament; however, as it is a return to the forgiveness given in baptism, strictly speaking, there are only two sacraments.
With respect to the eucharist or communion, the ELCT holds to the Lutheran doctrine of thesacramental union, that is, that Christ's body and blood is truly present "in, with and under" thebread and wine.[38] All communicantsorally receive not only bread and wine, but also the same body and blood of Christ that was given for them on the cross.[39] Members of other denominations sometimes refer to this as a belief inconsubstantiation. Lutherans, however,reject the philosophical explanation of consubstantiation, preferring to consider the presence of the Lord's body and blood as mysterious rather than explainable by human philosophy. The Lutheran belief in the holy mystery character of the consecrated bread and wine is more similar to that ofRoman Catholic andEastern Orthodox belief than to the views of most Protestants. In contrast, most Protestant church bodies doubt or openly deny that the actual body and blood of Christ is eaten in the Lord's Supper.
The ELCT decided to establish a relationship with theNorth American Lutheran Church, and both churches approved a "Memorandum of Understanding" at a convocation held in August 2013, paving the way forfull communion between the two churches.[40]
^"ELCT Press Release".News Releases. Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania. 2015.Archived from the original on 2016-02-21. Retrieved2016-02-14.
^"ELCT".www.elct.org.Archived from the original on 2022-01-23. Retrieved2021-10-22.
^"A Short history". Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania. 2007.Archived from the original on 2019-05-31. Retrieved2007-05-29.
^Nehemia Godwin Moshi."Stretching the Drum Skin"(PDF). Åbo Akademi University Press.Archived(PDF) from the original on 2020-03-09. Retrieved2020-03-09.
^"ELCT".www.elct.org.Archived from the original on 2021-10-22. Retrieved2021-10-23.
