RAMALLAH, Thursday, November 19, 2020 (WAFA) – Palestinian bishop Munib Younan was named the recipient of the Kenneth W. Bensen Award for Contextual Leadership, the  OMNIA Institute for Contextual Leadership announced on Wednesday.

It said that Munib Younan, Bishop Emeritus of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Jordan and the Holy Land will be this year’s recipient of the Kenneth W. Bensen Award for Contextual Leadership presented by OMNIA Institute for Contextual Leadership.

“Bishop Younan is an internationally renowned religious leader with significant experience and expertise in interfaith relationships and actions in pursuit of justice and peace. As one who is constantly attentive to the contextual struggles of the Palestinian people, Bishop Younan’s voice is both authentic and powerful,” it said.

“In his retirement, Bishop Younan continues to engage in the various ecumenical and interfaith initiatives in Jerusalem, some of which, he helped found and nurture. He continues to serve as an honorary president of the Middle East Council of Churches and is a recent past president of the Fellowship of Middle East Evangelical Churches. He is also a founding member of the Council of Religious Institutions in the Holy Land which comprises Jerusalem’s Jewish, Muslim and Christian communities, and provides leadership to the ecumenical Patriarchs and Heads of Local Christian Churches in Jerusalem.”

“Globally, Bishop Younan is the most recent past president of the Lutheran World Federation, a global communion of Lutheran churches with 145 member churches in 79 countries representing more than 70 million Christians, and is currently an honorary president of Religions for Peace International, a prominent interfaith organization dedicated to global peacebuilding.”

Born in 1950 in Jerusalem, Younan father, Andria Younan, came originally from Beersheba, and his mother, Alice Qandalaft, came originally from West Jerusalem. His parents became refugees during the Nakba, or catastrophe, when some 800,000 Palestinians were expelled by Zionist militias or fled their towns and villages in massive ethnic cleansing to make way for Israel, as a continuum of injustice that must end.  

Bishop Younan still holds the refugee status with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

K.F.