The Faculty of Theology at the University of Fribourg has announced plans to confer an honorary doctorate on Dr Mark S. Kinzer on Monday, 16 November 2026, during the University’s annual academic celebration (Dies academicus). Dr. Kinzer holds UMJC s’micha; is rabbi emeritus of member congregation Zera Avraham in Ann Arbor, Michigan; and has served as chair of the Union’s Theology Committee.
The Faculty said the award recognizes Rabbi Kinzer’s scholarship on early Christian ecclesiology and his contribution to overcoming anti-Judaism, stating, “His work asks what the Church must learn from the continuing election and covenantal life of the Jewish people, and what place Jewish disciples of Yeshua (Jesus) have within the people of God.”
The University of Fribourg, founded in 1889, is a world-renowned Swiss university and the country’s only bilingual university, offering study in French and German. Its Faculty of Theology is a valued research institution within the international academic community. The setting gives this recognition significance beyond a personal tribute: it brings Messianic Jewish scholarship into a prominent European theological institution and a wider scholarly conversation.
Kinzer is Rabbi Emeritus of Congregation Zera Avraham in Ann Arbor, Michigan; Senior Scholar and President Emeritus of the Messianic Jewish Theological Institute; founding moderator of Yachad BeYeshua; and a founding member of the Society for Post-Supersessionist Theology. His books include Postmissionary Messianic Judaism (2005), Searching Her Own Mystery (2015), and Jerusalem Crucified, Jerusalem Risen (2018).