 1989 Heinrich Bolleter was elected Bishop of the United Methodist Church of Central and Southern Europe, where he has to take care of 14 countries in Europe and Northern Africa.He was the successor of Franz Werner Schaefer and the third European bishop in the Methodist Church of Central and Southern Europe.Heinrich Bolleter saw himself always as a mediator between Evangelical tendencies of the small churches and the ecumenism of the big churches and showed this again and again by his engagement in inter-church relationships.