Andreas Havinga, Amsterdam, July 4 (ENI) - A church, most of whose members are not Lutheran, could soon become one of the biggest member churches of the Geneva-based Lutheran World Federation - if a church union plan goes through in the Netherlands.

Two Reformed churches in the Netherlands with a combined membership of about 2.5 million are planning to complete a merger in 2004 with the much smaller, 14,000-member Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

Officials of the united church said before a meeting on June 27 they intended to apply for membership of the LWF, a global body with 136 member churches in 76 countries representing most of the world's 65 million Lutherans.

If accepted into LWF membership, the united church - to be called the Protestant Church in the Netherlands - would be the seventh-biggest member church in Europe and the 12th-biggest in the world.

The church is also planning to join the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, a body with Presbyterian, Reformed, Congregational and United churches as members.

The synods of the two Reformed church denominations voted on June 27 in favour of the merger, with a second and deciding vote to take place on December 12. The Lutheran church synod, in contrast, will vote only once, on December 12.

If all three synod votes achieve the required majorities, the newly united church will come into being on May 1 2004.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church has been a member of the LWF since 1952, while the two Reformed churches are long-standing members of Warc.

Church officials say that they have been assured by the LWF's general secretary, the Rev. Ishmael Noko, that the new church will be able to become a member of the Lutheran federation.

"We'll have a good outcome," said Bas Plaisier, a senior church official, said in June, referring to negotiations with the LWF.

The plans to join the LWF have, however, been criticised by the theologically conservative Reformed Association church group.

"For the work of the RA, the LWF is not of importance. [The LWF] is far outside our field of vision," said Piet Vergunst, general secretary of the association, which has as members almost a quarter of the 1800 congregations of the Netherlands Reformed Church. [390 words]

ENI-03-0328
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