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Remembering a Leader Who Helped Bring “New Hope and New Life”
GENEVA, 5 August 2013 (LWI) –The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) has paid tribute to the life and service of Rev. Dr Eugene Ries, former director of the LWF Department for World Service, who died on 19 July, aged 86.
“It is not an exaggeration to say that he helped bring new hope and new life to hundreds of thousands of people,” LWF General Secretary Rev. Martin Junge said in his tribute to Ries, who devoted his entire ministry and professional life in LWF’s service.
Junge recalled the manifold service Ries provided to the LWF including his work with displaced persons in Austria and Germany following World War II, support to the Southeast Asian boat people, those fleeing colonialism and apartheid in Southern Africa, victims of drought and oppression in Ethiopia, and people caught in violence in Central America.
“He never lost sight of the mission. His life and work personified diakonia,” Junge added.
An American Lutheran pastor, Ries joined the LWF in 1949 as director for resettlement in Austria. He moved to Geneva in 1961, where he served in various LWF World Service positions until his retirement at the end of 1990.
Ries lived in retirement in Switzerland, and is survived by his wife Barbro and their son Thomas.
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