Per Lonning is a Norwegian theologian, professor, politician, Bishop of the Lutheran Church in Norway, and member of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches. He received his Doctor of Theology from the University of Oslo in 1955; was a member of Norwegian Parliament Conservative Party of Norway (1958-1965); Bishop of the Diocese of Borg (1969-1978); professor at the University of Strasbourg (1981-1987); and Bishop of the Diocese of Bjorgvin in Bergen (1987-1994). He resigned as Bishop of the Diocese of Borg in 1978 in protest over the passing of a law allowing on-demand abortions. In 1989 he refused to attend an ecumenical papal mass in Trondheim, Norway with Pope John Paul II in protest of the slowing down of ecumenism of the previous decades.