Martina Frühbeck elected top lay representative of Lower Austria’s Protestant church

Martina Frühbeck has been elected the highest lay representative of the Protestant Church in Lower Austria, ORF reported. She won the required two-thirds majority at a church assembly in Mödling on Saturday.

Frühbeck received 42 of 61 valid votes in the first round. The other candidates, Erich Jaquemar of St Pölten and Harald Höger of Mödling, received 12 and seven votes respectively.

The election followed Gisela Malekpour’s decision to step down after 15 years in the role. The superintendential curator leads the church alongside its superintendent, who is due to be elected next April, and represents it publicly.

Frühbeck said she wanted to “listen, connect and share responsibility”. As deputy to Malekpour, she had seen “the joy and also the burdens” that came with the role, she told delegates.

She said she wanted to understand what people in Protestant congregations from Amstetten to Zwettl cared about and to strengthen the network of congregations. “I want a church that is joyful, courageous and confessional,” she said.

Frühbeck, 58, has been married and has three adult children. She has served as curator of the Protestant congregation in Baden bei Wien since 2018 and joined the Lower Austrian church leadership committee in 2021.