The Rev. Dr. Volker Leppin, an active member of Christ the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, is the Horace Tracy Pitkin Professor of Historical Theology at Yale Divinity School. He is professor of medieval and Reformation history and theology, previously holding teaching positions in many universities in Germany and serving as an ordained minister from the Protestant church of Germany.
Over the course of 2022 and 2023, his ordination status was transferred to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). Dr. Leppin, rather than serving at a specific congregation, is now called by the ELCA to serve as a teacher of theology at Yale University. He requested that his welcome and installation onto to the “roster” of Ministers of Word and Sacrament in the ELCA be celebrated at his home congregation, where he occasionally fills in for Pastor Joshua Sullivan, both in preaching and presiding at the Communion table.
The bishop of our New England Synod of the ELCA, Rev. James Hazelwood, presided over Volker’s installation on January 7, 2024, in order to prayerfully welcome him at our 10 am worship service, and Dr. Leppin’s friend and colleague, The Rev. Dr. Guy Erwin, preached at the service. Dr. Erwin is also the president of the United Lutheran Seminary, which has campuses in both Philadelphia and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.