Biography
Margot Käßmann (German: [ˈmaʁɡɔt ˈkɛːsman]; born 3 June 1958) is a Lutheran theologian, who was Landesbischöfin (bishop) of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Hanover in Germany. On 28 October 2009, she was also elected to lead the Protestant Church in Germany, a federation of Protestant church bodies in Germany. She stepped down from both offices on 24 February 2010 following a drink-driving incident. After serving as a "Reformation Ambassador" for the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, she retired in 2018. Käßmann was born Margot Schulze in Marburg. She passed her Abitur at the Elisabethschule Marburg in 1977 and studied Protestant theology at the universities of Tübingen, Edinburgh, Göttingen and Marburg. During her studies, she participated among other things in archaeological excavations in 1978 of several weeks' duration in Akko, Israel. In 1983 she became a "Vikarin" (German for a pastor in the practical training phase of her education) in Wolfhagen, near Kassel. She also attended the Hotchkiss School on a scholarship by ASSIST.
She participated as a youth delegate in the 1983 plenary assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Vancouver, where she became the youngest member of the central committee. Between 1991 and 1998, she was a member of the executive committee of the WCC.
After her ministerial ordination in 1985, she became the village pastor of Frielendorf-Spieskappel in the Schwalm-Eder-Kreis, together with her husband, from whom she was divorced in 2007.
Käßmann earned her Ph.D. under Konrad Raiser, at the Ruhr University Bochum, with a thesis on the topic "Poverty and Wealth as an Inquiry into the Unity of the Church". In 1990, she was assigned to the Evangelical Church's volunteer service, and from 1992 to 1994, she was director of studies at the Evangelical Academy at Hofgeismar. Between 1994 and 1999, she was General Secretary of the Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchentag (German Protestant Church Congress). In 1999, she was elected bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover; she was the first woman to hold this office. In 2006 she underwent a breast cancer operation.
In 2002 she resigned from the WCC Central Committee after the results of a Special Commission on the participation of Orthodox churches in the WCC recommended that the term "ecumenical worship" be dropped, and that there be much clearer guidelines about what was termed "interconfessional common prayer". She is currently a member of the central committee of the Conference of European Churches.
Margot Käßmann currently sits on the Advisor Board for the German Foundation for World Population. In addition, she was involved as an ambassador for the 2006 FIFA World Cup for people with mental handicaps, held in Germany.
Käßmann is vocal in her objections to the political far right. She argued for a ban on the National Democratic Party of Germany claiming that the church ought not to "avert its eyes" as it had in 1933. She asked: "How can we tell young people that they should not support this party if it is officially permitted?"
In January 2009, Käßmann expressed the opinion that it might be better to tear down former and unused churches than to allow them to be used for purposes that could damage their image. As examples of such purposes, she mentioned conversion into restaurants, discothèques, or mosques. A reassignment to a synagogue, however, she found positive. After protests from Muslims, she slightly qualified her statement, saying: "If a Christian congregation is convinced that the use as a mosque can happen in deepest peace, I concur, but at the moment I do not see that possibility."In May 2010, Käßmann was a keynote speaker at the 2nd Ecumenical Kirchentag (German Evangelical Lutheran Church and Roman Catholic Church Congress) in Munich, Bavaria, where she also led the night prayer at Marienplatz on the final evening of the event. She taught at Emory University from August – December 2010. As of 1 January 2011, she was a guest professor at the Ruhr University Bochum where she had earned her PhD in 1989.Käßmann has supported, over the years, the Freya von Moltke Foundation in many ways. In 2011 she conducted a speech for Freya von Moltke's 100 birthday celebration in Cologne.She is a pacifist and believes there can be no just wars.
Filmography
all 41
TV Shows 40
self 39
Movies 1
Die Narbe (2020)
Tietjen campt (2020)
Hirschhausens Sprechstunde (2020)
Maischberger (2019)
MDR um 11 (2017)
lesenswert sachbuch (2014)
Mystik und Widerstand (2013)
Stöckl (2013)
Günther Jauch (2011)
Peter Hahne (2010)
Tietjen und Hirschhausen (2009)
Markus Lanz (2008)
ANNE WILL (2007)
Inas Nacht (2007)
Thadeusz (2005)
Unsere Besten (2003)
Menschen bei Maischberger (2003)
Unter den Linden (2002)
Hart aber fair (2001)
Menschen der Woche (2000)
Kamingespräch (2000)
Tacheles - Talk am roten Tisch (2000)
Maybrit Illner (1999)
Volle Kanne (1999)
Beckmann (1999)
Die Johannes B. Kerner Show (1998)
Alpha Forum (1998)
Nachtstudio (1997)
Im Dialog (1997)
Phoenix Runde (1997)
Talk vor Mitternacht (1995)
Riverboat (1992)
DAS! (1991)
ZDF-Mittagsmagazin (1989)
Tele-Akademie (1987)
Wortwechsel (1982)
NDR Talk Show (1979)
Kölner Treff (1976)
III nach neun (1974)
Die Montagsmaler (1974)
Zur Person (1963)
Ratings
Information
Known ForActing
GenderFemale
Birthday1958-06-03 (65 years old)
Birth NameMargot-Renate Schulze
Birth PlaceMarburg, Germany
ReligionLutheranism
CitizenshipsGermany
AwardsCommander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, Predigtpreis
This article uses material from Wikipedia.
- Margot Käßmann
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