Rev. Christopher M. Thomforde

Christopher Thomforde served as the 15th president of Moravian College and Moravian Theological Seminary from 2006 to 2013. He is credited with developing a strategic plan focused on enrolling and supporting a diverse student body and successfully overseeing major campus renovations, including the 231-bed Hurd Integrated Living and Learning Community. Prior to joining Moravian, Christopher served as president of St. Olaf College and president of Bethany College, each term lasting five years. In addition to his career in higher education, Christopher is a retired Lutheran minister who served as a parish pastor at St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Dansville, New York, and as a university chaplain and instructor in philosophy and religion at Colgate University and Susquehanna University.

A longtime supporter of international education and exchange, Christopher pursued intensive coursework in Mandarin Chinese at Middlebury College following his undergraduate education. This led to several years of teaching Western language and medieval European history at Tunghai University in Taichung, Taiwan.

Christopher holds a bachelor’s degree in medieval and Russian history from Princeton University, a master’s degree in divinity from Yale University Divinity School, and a doctorate in ministry from the Princeton Theological Seminary.