Matthias Ring

Matthias Franz Johann Ring (born 22 February 1963 in Wallenfels, District of Kronach, Upper Franconia) is a German theologian and the Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of the Old-Catholics in Germany.

Ring was made a deacon by Bishop Sigisbert Kraft on 13 May 1989 to serve the Old Catholic communities of Würzburg and Nürnberg.

Some six months later (18 November 1989) he was ordained priest and installed as pastor of the Old Catholic parishes in Regensburg and Passau on 1 October 1993.

Ring as served as editor of the diocesan magazine Christen heute ("Christians Today"),[1] as president of the synod of the Bavarian parishes, and as chairman of the finance committee.

At an extraordinary diocesan synod on 7 November 2009, in Mannheim, Ring was elected to succeed Joachim Vobbe as the tenth Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of the Old Catholics in Germany; Ring was consecrated a bishop in Karlsruhe on 20 March 2010.

Matthias Ring, at the election of Ring to the position of Diocesan Bishop of the Old Catholic Diocese in Germany