Luther Institute honors Ambassador Knut Vollebaek of Norway

by Frank Imhoff, ELCA News Service

The Luther Insititute, Washington, D.C., will present one of its
2007 Wittenberg Awards to Knut Vollebaek, Norway's ambassador to
the United States, at a ceremony Aug. 29 at the Lutheran Church
of the Reformation, Washington. Vollebaek served as Norway's
Minister of Foreign Affairs and "played a key role in negotiating
the end to the conflict in Kosovo through his position as
chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe (OSCE)," according to a Luther Institute news release. He
will have been ambassador from March 2001 to September 2007, when
he will return to OSCE as High Commissioner for Minorities.

Vollebaek will receive the Wittenberg Award "for his outstanding
service to his country, for world peace and as a wonderful
example of a Christian person living out his vocation in the
world," according to the release. "Vollebaek has done much to
promote educational opportunities between institutions in Norway
and the United States. Each year he has convened a gathering of
alumni from the historically Norwegian-American Colleges and
Universities in Washington, D.C., on the occasion of the Nobel
Peace Prize awards."

The Luther Institute is an independent center for laity and
clergy fostering education and research on social, educational
and ethical issues in the public sphere. It conducts programs to
promote its mission and to advance the roles of faith and ethics
in public life. The Institute inaugurated the Wittenberg Awards
in 1990 to recognize specific Lutheran laity and clergy from
around the world for distinguished service to church and society.
Another purpose for the awards is to encourage other Lutherans to
accept calls to service and servant leadership.