April 20, 2010

CHICAGO – The Rev. Mieczyslaw Cieslar, bishop, Warsaw diocese of the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession (Lutheran) in Poland (ECACP), died April 19 in a car accident returning home from attending state funeral services for Lech Kaczynski, Poland's president. The ECACP is a member of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF).

According to news reports Cieslar, 60, died near the city of Lódz, located about 75 miles southwest of Warsaw. Police confirmed the car crash but released no further details. The president of Poland died in a plane crash April 10 in western Russia.

"We express our deepest sympathy to the family of Bishop Mieczyslaw Cieslar and to the members of the diocese in Warsaw. This is a very tragic event for our companion church amid the overwhelming sense of loss among the Polish people in the death of Lech Kaczynski and the other victims of the plane crash in Russia," said the Rev. Rafael Malpica Padilla, executive director, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's (ELCA) Global Mission. The ELCA is a member of the LWF.

"We hold our companion church, the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Poland, and its Bishop Jerzy Samiec in our prayers, strengthened by the promise of the Resurrection and sustained by God's continued presence in our lives," said Malpica Padilla.

ELCA Global Mission maintains a church-to-church relationship with the ECACP. That relationship is extended through the ELCA Companion Synods program with the ELCA Oregon Synod.

The ECACP has 75,000 members in 120 congregations. The church emphasizes evangelism, diaconal ministry, women and youth ministries.

The ECACP is one of the 47 churches that founded the LWF in 1947. Based in Geneva, the LWF is a global communion of 140 member churches in 79 countries, representing more than 70 million Lutheran Christians.

Information about ELCA Global Mission is at http://www.ELCA.org/globalmission on the ELCA Web site, and the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Poland at http://www.luteranie.pl/eng/index.htm, on the Internet.

ELCA News Service