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Although two celebrations of 50 years of dialogue between Russian Orthodox and German Protestant churches were canceled suddenly in a dispute over the election of a woman as Germany’s senior Protestant leader, a Russian church official says that academic conferences may become a way to continue ecumenical relations.

The meetings planned for November 30 in Berlin and for December 8 in Moscow were canceled after remarks by Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairperson of the Moscow Pat riarch ate’s Department of External Church Relations.

The Evangelical Church in Germany has elected Bishop Margot Kässmann, 51, to lead 24 million German Protestants—the first time a woman has become the EKD’s top executive. She was the only candidate at the October 28 synod meeting in Ulm, southern Germany.

Kässmann, divorced and the youngest ever chairperson of the EKD council, succeeds Bishop Wolfgang Huber, who is retiring at 67. She has been bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Han nover since 1999.