CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Rev. Philip D. W. Krey, 49, was elected president of the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia by the seminary's board of trustees Oct. 27. Krey will succeed the Rev. Robert G. Hughes, who will leave the post to resume teaching at the end of 1999.
The Lutheran seminary is one of eight affiliated with the 5.2-million-member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the fifth-largest Protestant denomination in the United States.
Krey is dean and professor of early and medieval church history. He has served on the seminary's faculty since 1990. During his seminary career, Krey has served as co-director of the school's urban program and has served as a mentoring pastor at Emanuel Lutheran Church in Philadelphia's revitalized Southwark section and at St. John Lutheran Church in the city's Overbrook area.
Krey has been an interim pastor for Trinity Lutheran Church in Philadelphia's Germantown neighborhood and served as pastor for churches in Chicago and Baltimore.
"I'm excited and honored to be named president to serve a seminary with such a historically significant tradition in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America," Krey said upon his election. "I think the seminary is ideally positioned to be a mediating educational influence across the wider church because its students come from such dynamically diverse backgrounds and because it is part of a region that spans urban, suburban and rural communities."
"I'm humbled to be following Dr. Hughes, who has been a devoted and visionary president. Under his leadership the seminary has enjoyed a remarkable resurgence and historic growth," Krey added.
The Philadelphia seminary opened the Wiedemann Center in the fall of 1998. The center houses 66 residential apartments, a high-technology classroom and an Augsburg Fortress bookstore. Augsburg Fortress is the publishing house of the ELCA.
In addition, the seminary recently received a $500,000 Lilly Endowment grant for an initiative to encourage high school youth to engage in theological reflection about life issues.
Krey compared the societal setting of today's church to that of the world of the Second and Third centuries.
"We are in a pluralistic, multicultural time much like that of the Roman Empire of that period," Krey said. "People have many choices about religion. They see a secular government failing to deliver programs and institutions that society needs in order to be fully civil. This kind of time calls upon many traditions and institutions -- religious, nonprofit and public -- to be able to collaborate and combine their resources to bring about a better world. Traditions that cling too rigidly to their traditions may actually lose them."
Hughes said he is excited about Krey's appointment. "He is a highly qualified, trusted colleague and a valued friend. The seminary will really be in capable hands."
Dr. Robert Blanck, Philadelphia, who chairs the board of trustees, said the seminary conducted a wide search for a successor to Hughes and had discovered "that we had in our midst the candidate. The response of the entire community here at the seminary was overwhelming. I am convinced that in the election of Dr. Krey we have chosen wisely and well."
"The students are really excited with the decision of the board to select Dr. Krey as the next president," said Susan D. Ruggles, Easton, Pa., president of the student body. "He has many gifts, and his interest in and interaction with the students is one of them."
Krey earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Massachusetts in 1972. He graduated in 1976 from The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, Pa., with a master of divinity degree. Later, he earned a master of arts degree from Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., in 1985 and a doctoral degree from the University of Chicago in 1990. Krey, born in Brooklyn, N.Y., is an ELCA pastor.
Krey's key academic interests have included the urban church, and medieval and Byzantine studies. He worships at St. Michael Lutheran Church, Philadelphia.
Krey's family is strongly rooted in the Lutheran tradition. His father, the Rev. Rudolf Krey, was a pastor who served congregations in Germany, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. Three of his brothers are ordained. His mother, Gertrude, and his older brothers and sisters have always been leaders in their congregations.
Krey and his wife, Rene Diemer, are parents of five children: Jessicah, a first year student at the seminary; Lindsay, a senior at the University of Chicago; Jordan, 18; Noah, 14, and Micah, 8. Diemer is the seminary's registrar. The Kreys live in Philadelphia.
[*Mark A. Staples is director of communications at the Lutheran
Theological Seminary at Philadelphia.]
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About the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America:
The ELCA is one of the largest Christian denominations in the United States, with 2.8 million members in more than 8,500 worshiping communities across the 50 states and in the Caribbean region. Known as the church of "God's work. Our hands.," the ELCA emphasizes the saving grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ, unity among Christians and service in the world. The ELCA's roots are in the writings of the German church reformer Martin Luther.
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