Mission History

ELCA companions in India

The Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church (AELC) traces its beginnings from the missionary efforts of the first Lutheran missionary to Guntur, C. F. Heyer, in 1842. "Father" Heyer was deployed by the Ministerium of Pennsylvania, the oldest synod in North America. Work started by the North German Missionary Society in 1845 was turned over to the American Lutherans in 1850. As the work spread, Guntur became the center for general and higher education, and Rajahmundry, an old Telugu center of learning and culture, became the center for theological education. The Bible training school set up there in 1885 later became Luthergiri Seminary.

The AELC was constituted in 1927. Prior to this it was a mission of the United Lutheran Church in America (now part of the ELCA).

The two founders of the Northern Evangelical Lutheran Church (NELC) were Hans Peter Boerresen, a Dane, and Lars Olsen Skrefsrud, a Norwegian. They began work among the Santals in 1867. Boerresen became the promoter and fund-raiser; Skrefsrud gave the mission its dynamic character and resolute sense of purpose. Support of this church has continued through the Danish and Norwegian Santal Missions and The American Lutheran Church, a predecessor of the ELCA. This religious body designated itself a church from the time of the first baptism of members in 1869, and thus bypassed the long period of "mission status" through which most other churches in Asia and Africa have gone.

The South Andhra Lutheran Church (SALC) is the result of work begun in 1865 by the German Lutheran Hermannsburg Mission. In 1923 the Joint Synod of Ohio (a predecessor of the American Lutheran Church) began to assist in the work. After World War I, the Hermannsburg Mission turned over all work in India to the Americans because of impoverished conditions in Germany at that time. The church was organized in 1945.The AELC was constituted in 1927.

The United Evangelical Lutheran Church in India (UELCI) was founded in 1926 as the Federation of Evangelical Lutheran Churches in India.