The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Lithuania (, ELCL) is a Lutheran church body comprising congregations in Lithuania. The ELCL is a member of the Porvoo Communion and the Lutheran World Federation. In 2018 the ELCL reported having 19,000 active members. There are 52 congregations, and around 30 ordained clergy, including the bishop and two deacons. The current bishop () of the church is the Rt Revd Mindaugas Sabutis. Around 0.56% of the population of Lithuania are members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Lithuania. The abbreviated name for the church is in Latin, Unitas Lithuaniae or in Polish, Jednota Litewska (Lithuanian church provincial union). History Lutheranism in the Grand Duchy The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Lithuania dates back to the Reformation, when Kaunas, a large town in Lithuania, accepted the Augsburg Confession in 1550. In the 16th century Lutheranism started to spread from the two German-controlled neighbouring states of Livonia to the north and the Protestant formerly monastic, Teutonic State of Prussia to its south. A united reformed church organization in Lithuania's church province can be counted from the year 1557 at the Synod in Vilnius on December 14 of that year. From that year the Synod met regularly forming all the church provinces of The Grand Duchy of Lithuania, at first from two and later growing to six districts and representative district synods. It sent its representatives to the General Polish/Lithuanian Synods; however in its administration it was in fact a self-governing Church. The first Superintendent was Simonas Zacijus (Szymon Zacjusz, approx 1507–1591). In 1565 the anti- Trinitarian Lithuanian Brotherhood who rejected the learning of the Trinity separated from the church. The parish network covered nearly all of The Grand Duchy. Its district centers were Vilnius, Kedainai, Biržai, Slucke, Kojdanove and Zabludove later Izabeline. Prussian Lithuania Since 1945 the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Lithuania has included Lutheran congregations in the formerly German Klaipėda Region, the northern part of Lithuania Minor, where Lutheranism dates back to 1525. The majority of Prussian Lithuanians living in East Prussia and in Memelland (what is now the Klaipėda Region of modern Lithuania) were members of the Evangelical Church of the old-Prussian Union, and most of them were resettled in the Federal Republic of Germany along with the rest of the East Prussian German inhabitants after World War II. Since 1525 Lutheranism started spreading among Lithuanians in Lithuania Minor, which comprised about a quarter of