Bishop Maria Jepsen, the first woman to be anointed bishop in the Lutheran Church, resigned on July 16 having recognized that her credibility had been put into doubt, with respect to numerous cases of sexual abuse committed within her church.
Ordained bishop in 1992, Bishop Jepsen transferred Pastor Dieter K. in 1999 to a prison chaplaincy in order to prevent further contact with children. However, according to Der Spiegel, she did not notify anyone of suspicions that the Lutheran pastor had sexually abused minor. Pastor Dieter K. gave religion classes at an institute in Ahrensburgh even while no one at the school had been notified of his record of abuse.
According to various victims, the Lutheran cleric abused minors and others between the ages of 5 and 20 years of age during the 1980s. Heide Hemse, who held an important position in the Lutheran Church in Hamburg, informed Bishop Jepsen in 1999 of the abuse. A victim’s sister also notified Bishop Jepsen in 1999 of Pastor Dieter’s past. Bishop Jepsen recently denied any knowledge of the abuse but affirmed that she investigated Pastor Dieter K. for sexual affairs with women. According to Bishop Jepsen, “My credibility has been placed in doubt. I do not see that in this situation I can continue to proclaim the Gospel.â€
It was Bishop Jepsen who celebrated in 1993 the first “blessing†of a homosexual couple in Germany, while she unsuccessfully campaigned in 2008 to have a openly homosexual male named bishop. Bishop Jepsen is widely known within the Lutheran Church for openly denying the virginity of Mary – the mother of Jesus. Mary’s perpetual virginity was proclaimed by Martin Luther himself, and is an article of faith for many Lutherans, as it is for Catholic and Orthodox Christians.
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