Ferdinand Sigg

Who was Ferdinand Sigg?

Ferdinand Sigg was the first European bishop of the Central Conference of Middle and Southern Europe of the Methodist Episcopal Church

He grew up in a Methodist workman family. From 1923 to 1927 he studied at the Methodist seminary in Frankfurt, Germany.

In 1929 he married Alice Mumenthaler. After completing his studies, he worked in the Methodist congregation of Basel and then became secretary of bishop John Louis Nuelsen. 1936 in an economical crises he became director of the Swiss Methodist publishing house in Zurich. In this position he contributed a lot after World War II to rebuild the completely destroyed German publishing house in Frankfurt. As publisher, his concerns were the role of laity in church, the role of the church in society, socialism and church, and world mission.

Long before he became bishop, Sigg was engaged in ecumenic work. From 1942 he was the representative of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the Swiss Evangelical Church Federation. 1948 he took part as interpreter at the constituting conference of the World Council of Churches in Amsterdam, Netherlands.