Soritua Albert Ernst Nababan (24 May 1933 – 8 May 2021) was an Indonesian Lutheran minister who was elected as the ephorus (bishop) of the Batak Christian Protestant Church (HKBP) at its 48th Sinode Godang (Great Synod) on 31 January 1987.

Born into a family of teachers, Soritua attended primary and secondary education in North Sumatra before migrating to Jakarta to pursue a theological career.

He left the country in 1963 with a doctorate degree in theology and held offices in the East Asian Christian Conference and the Council of Churches in Indonesia before being elected as Ephorus of HKBP in 1987.

The split ended after both parties were reconciled in 1998, and Soritua handed his Ephorus seat to an acting officeholder.

While attending high school, Soritua was also enlisted in the Students' Army, a paramilitary unit during the Indonesian National Revolution that fought against the Dutch.

Following his graduation from the academy in 1958, Soritua remained in Germany to pursue a doctorate degree in theology at the Heidelberg University.

[3] After receiving his doctorate in theology Soritua returned to Indonesia in 1963 and was elected as the first youth secretary of the East Asian Christian Conference (EACC).

After the confrontation de-escalated in 1966, Soritua was sent by the Council of Churches in Indonesia (CCI) to Malaysia in January 1966 as part of a goodwill mission.

Sihombing's supporters, who consisted of twenty pastors, some other ministers, and lay members, later accused Soritua of fraud and cheating to win the election, but to no avail.

[7] After his assumption of the Ephorus seat, Soritua started an improvement, ‘reformation’ and development program, which he believed would fix the decline that HKBP has experienced in the last twenty years of its existence.

The P.M. Sihombing group—later referred to as the Parritrit group—accused TEN of bringing "a serious danger to the spiritual life of the Christian Bataks and especially to HKBP".

After failing to prove the accusations, members of the Parritrit group were reprimanded from their offices at the 49th Sinode Godang in November 1988.

Based on a memo enacted by the Minister of Religious Affairs in September 1990, Chairman of the Supreme Advisory Council Maraden Panggabean formed a pacification team to "resolve the internal problems of HKBP".

[13] The 51st Sinode Godang, which was held from 23 to 28 November 1992, was the peak of conflict between the Soritua faction and the government-backed Parritrit group.

A month later, on 23 December 1992, Major-General H. R. Pramono, Colonel Toding's superior, appointed S. M. Siahaan as the acting Ephorus.

[17] The conflict between Soritua faction—later known as the AP-SSA faction (Aturan Paraturan-Setia Sampai Akhir, Rules and Guidance-Faithful Until the End) split HKBP into two.

[20] After five years of division and split, the reconciliation process yielded fruit when on 1 November 1998, J.R. Hutauruk was appointed the acting Ephorus.

[23] Soritua was also active in United in Mission, an ecumenical organization covering 33 churches in Africa, Asia, and Europe.