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Reverend Erich Hertel

Rev. Erich Hertel Bishop of Namibia's German Lutheran Church

Hertel was born in Hessen, Germany in 1949. He pursued theological studies at the Hermannsburg Mission Seminary, Germany. Following training as a vicar in Bogota, Colombia, he worked as a community pastor in Durban, South Africa, from 1986 to 1995. His responsibilities since 1995 included looking after and accompanying staff members sent to the Hermannsburg Mission partner churches in Southern Africa.

The synod of the German-speaking Evangelical Church in Namibia (ELCIN-GELC) elected Rev. Erich Hertel as the church’s new bishop. Hertel took over from Bishop Reinhard Keding who served for almost 12 years as a Bishop. After election as bishop of the German-speaking Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia (ELCIN-GELC) in September 2005, Rev. Erich Hertel took up his new position in Windhoek, Namibia, in May 2006.

“People connect language with their identity and their self-understanding. And one may not deal with this lightly. We will need to find a common language that all can use to express themselves. This should not however dissolve the differences between languages but should create opportunities for everyone to come together. Our aim is to benefit from greater unity and to realize that this is not about German, English, Herero, and so on, but about us as Christians bearing witness to our world even with all our differences, even with our variety of language” Bishop Hertel quoted in the Lutheran World Organisation news during his ordination . This was at a time when the nation's three Lutheran churches were coming closer to constituting their own United Church Council of Namibian Evangelical Lutheran Churches. They had been divided for decades throughout a National history of colonialism and apartheid.