Today, 17 July, the Latvian Lutheran Women Theologians’ Association (LLSTA) celebrates its 25th anniversary.
For 25 years the LLSTA has worked with the goal of achieving women’s ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia. There has been knocking on doors that have remained closed, as a result of which half of the LLSTA’s pastor members live and serve outside Latvia. These are not ten or twenty women. We are talking about a large number of women pastors who, having received God’s call, serve in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia Abroad (see the article “I am” 65 Latvian women pastors in Latvia and around the world).
During the time of LELB archbishop Kārlis Gailītis, many women studied at the Theological Seminary, and later at the Faculty of Theology, with the idea that after obtaining their diploma they would be ordained. The situation changed drastically in 1993, when Archbishop Gailītis died and the LELB elected its new archbishop. In 1993 the Worldwide Evangelical Lutheran Latvian Theologians’ Association (VELLTA) was founded, but on 17 June 1995, on the basis of VELLTA, the LLSTA was founded.
We invite you to familiarize yourself with an archival article – Pastor Indra Skuja-Grīslis’s 11 May 2010 retrospective on the fate of women theologians after the death of Archbishop Gailītis, as well as the circumstances in which the idea for the LLSTA arose and the purpose for which the Latvian Lutheran Women Theologians’ Association was founded.
FROM VELLTA TO LLSTA
THE SHIFT IN THE DIRECTION OF THE LELB ATMOSPHERE IN THE FIRST YEARS AFTER
THE DEATH OF ARCHBISHOP KĀRLIS GAILĪTIS
Pastor Indra Skuja-Grīslis
in cooperation with theologian Aija Zvirbule
2010.05.11.
During the time of the Awakening, the Lutheran Church becomes very popular, thanks to its call to people’s spiritual freedom and its work in restoring the country’s independence. For the women of the LELB, too, paths to all kinds of service in congregations open up widely, and in society interest in women in the Church grows.
At the Faculty of Theology (TF) of the University of Latvia, restored on the basis of the Theological Seminary, an unusual and creative time begins: there is access to teaching staff from the West and the East; on the recommendations of the pastors of Lutheran congregations, many talented young women begin to study, women who are aware of both a calling to serve and to teach and who develop academic interests. Among the women theology students, the idea of organizing into an educational women’s association is nurtured.
This idea is finally realized in the spring of 1993 at the premises of the Riga YMCA, when, with the participation of theologian Erika Mača from the USA, under the leadership of the serving theology student Aija Zvirbule, VELLTA (the Worldwide Evangelical Lutheran Latvian Theologians’ Association) is informally founded. It is conceived as an academic theological organization. Its initial members are several of Latvia’s future women theologians from the TF, as well as Latvian clergywomen from abroad. The founding document is signed by 12 women theologians, including Aija Zvirbule, Austra Reine, Zilgme Eglīte, Māra Dzērve, Ivanda Ceiere, Inta Funknere, Dace Jaunzeme, Inese Žverelo, Sandra Rozenberga, and others. The members have differing views on priorities. Aija Zvirbule and her like-minded companions are most interested in educating local lay people and promoting academic theology, while some of the Western sisters see the newly founded association more as a fighting organization, because by that time archbishop Jānis Vanags has already been elected, who has publicly proclaimed his stance against women’s ordination. A wider circle of theology students and also potential male supporters is introduced to VELLTA, in the serious hope of expanding the number of members. At this time the role of women in theology in Latvia has not yet been recognized and defined; feminism, including feminist theology, has not been identified and clearly understood in the Latvian context.
Before VELLTA is officially registered in accordance with the state requirements of the time and its working priorities are developed further, theology student Aija Zvirbule is forced to step down from leading and further organizing VELLTA. The reason is Aija’s very difficult pregnancy, when she fights for the life of her unborn child. Unfortunately, the legal status of Aija’s expected child has provoked discussions among the association’s members and supporters about questions of morality and ethics. Aija believes that abortion is not up for discussion and takes the side of life, and, in order not to compromise the service of the other sisters, distances herself from VELLTA. This delays the official registration of VELLTA, and its activity dies down.
In the LELB, the behind-the-scenes polarization over the question of women’s ordination continues.
Since the election of Jānis Vanags, women are no longer ordained. At the beginning of his tenure, theology students and TF graduates still continue to serve in congregations, both on assignments from Archbishop Kārlis Gailītis and on a voluntary basis, serving alongside the pastors of larger congregations. There is a lack of a stable middle generation of pastors. Men, theology students, on the other hand, owing to the great shortage of pastors, are “accelerated” in their ordination and assigned to serve in LELB congregations even while already in their first year at the TF. At the start of J. Vanags’s tenure, no one yet questions the professional ministry qualifications of the women TF students in congregations; unfortunately, the service of women, with quiet hopes for ordination, now continues in a tense and unclear atmosphere. The polarization continues without any definite theological discussions. The official commissions of the LELB/LELBĀL remain at the level of behind-the-scenes session talks and plans. Archbishop Vanags expresses to society and the press his interpretation of feminism, borrowed from the Western context. His interpretation, however, does not really correspond to the LELB context and sociological environment. Unfortunately, the concept of feminism publicly explained by Archbishop Vanags and his criticism of women’s ordination begin to sow negative sentiments in the wider society, because he constantly draws parallels between women’s ordination and homosexuality, and thus the backdrop of the idea of women’s ordination in Latvia is supplemented with the homophobic anxieties sown by the archbishop. It should be added that J. Vanags speaks more about feminism as a social movement than about feminist theology, the origins of which, incidentally, are rooted in Catholic theology.
Paradoxically, among the lay people and pastors, the men/supporters of women’s ordination publicly keep silent. It is unclear why, soon after the election of Archbishop Vanags, a time of fear and mistrust about publicly expressing one’s opinion in the Church has begun, if that opinion differs from the opinion of the leadership. After all, the Cheka had stopped persecuting anyone since the end of the 1980s, yet the courage of the Awakening movement in the pastors has fizzled out… Pastors, if it does not concern them personally, and, possibly fearing to lose something, usually keep silent in public. By contrast, the women theologians, who have no congregation and are deprived of opportunities for service and ordination, have nothing to lose, and they dare to speak out. Those who work in a congregation may, in part, already begin to feel threatened. The optimism in the Church from the time of Archbishop Gailītis is replaced by Archbishop Vanags’s unbending backbone and the dominance of his private theological conviction. The serving women theologians for the most part continue their studies and also quietly and humbly do their work in congregations. There are oral testimonies that many are privately warned, so as not to lose their opportunities for service, not to meddle in Church politics, not to split the Church of Christ, not to get mixed up with the “feminists” (which, already with Archbishop Vanags’s help, has become a negative concept among the people).
Initially, the association gathered women (pastors, theologians, students) who were interested in theology and service in a congregation, but they represented a very broad spectrum of theological views – from liberal to conservative. Both directions are encountered in various wrappings and nuances – that is, they are united by gender, but not always by theological views. I can say with confidence that among the women of the LELB there is not a single representative of a lesbian Church. It must be added in particular that the women serving in the LELB also cannot be characterized uniformly in terms of how they themselves understand women’s service. Some of the serving sisters are traditional, with relatively conservative theological views. Often their views are indirectly determined by the congregation in which they grew up in faith (yes, also the pastor). There are unclear stances about whether a woman’s gender determines how the role of a pastor is understood. Some sisters are more charismatically inclined. There are nuances in the differences of generation, culture, and education. The only common denominator is rather that all these women have a unique understanding of the calling to serve. They are all united by the awareness that they have received God’s call to serve. Yet it is an individual awareness of calling, felt alone with God. At that time, for a large part of them, the classical arguments “for” or “against” women’s ordination grounded in biblical theology are possibly still unfamiliar or known only superficially and theoretically, or the classical texts of feminist theology are little known. The feminist movement, which Archbishop Vanags is so alarmed about, is for the most part not at all a priority or within the field of view of the first women pastors at that time. The views of the pastors ordained in the time of Matulis and Gailītis are clearly grounded in the Bible and tradition. In the congregation and in the pulpit, they more or less unconsciously copy the role of the male pastor. Even the rite of women’s ordination in the so-called Lūsis exile agenda of the LELBA liturgically describes that a woman is an exception in the office of pastor. Even those brothers who support women’s ordination nonetheless criticize women’s emotionality and privately express that only a few may exceptionally be pastors. Thus, at this time, the role of the woman pastor is most of all defined by the male pastors, and a large part of the women, as it were, indirectly agree with this by keeping silent. It is therefore no surprise that many of the serving pastors and theologians at that time see themselves theologically most of all as Jesus’s women disciples on the morning of the resurrection in the Gospel of John – total isolation and loneliness with the Lord, where the disciples have scattered, but Jesus says to Mary Magdalene and sends a woman: “..go and tell my brothers…”
Gradually, statistically, the number of conservatively inclined educated brothers grows, many with roots in the Mežaparks congregation. Their theology is doctrinaire and therefore logically understandable. Unfortunately, it must be added that superficial parallels can be felt with the old communist ideology, doctrine, discipline, and hierarchical obedience. Also a fear of those who are in positions of power. This is a familiar and comfortable situation for those who lived in the former USSR. Could this be the reason why lay people are responsive to the authority of conservative Lutheranism and why more and more voices are raised by doctrinairely conservative women who are against women’s ordination – the fellow travelers and followers of these brothers? After all, it is precisely the role of these women that conservative men help to define most clearly. (See, for example, Solvita Šmite in the article “The Founding of the LELSA”.) This is only a fragmentary touching upon those ideological aspects of dogmatic theology that have not helped to promote the dialogue on women’s ordination in the Latvian context. In such an atmosphere, the idea and informal leadership of VELLTA are taken over by the Western clergywomen Austra Reine and Vija Klīve from the USA. Pastor Austra Reine is a missionary of the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) in Latvia. Vija Klīve is a deacon of the LELBA. Both also worked in congregations in Latvia. Their theological positions, looking back from a distance of time, probably were not identical at the time. What these sisters had in common was that both had the very best intentions of promoting women’s ordination in Latvia. Unfortunately, Reine and Klīve, in their American idealism and naivety, do not fully understand the context of Latvia and the LELB at the time – that, without recognizing and identifying the role of woman in the Church and without educating the lay people and the wider society, one cannot popularize ideas. For Reine and Klīve, as Americans who actively and openly try to speak publicly about the question of women’s ordination, opponents can most easily pin a careless, superficial label of aggressive feminism. The Latvian brothers misunderstand the cultural contexts, because they have never lived in America and at best see the American mentality in clichés and prejudices. The traditional American volunteer work (volunteer work) and the freedom of speech proclaimed in the U.S. constitution (Freedom of Speech)are negatively labeled as aggressive feminism and as interference in the internal affairs of the LELB. Thus the well-intended activities of Reine and Klīve, with the help of Vanags’s fear of feminism, have now become a negative yardstick for the idea of women’s ordination, and it is by this that all the sisters who support women’s ordination are judged.
At this time, Archbishop Jānis Vanags continues to ride his three hobbyhorses very actively – feminism, women’s ordination, and homosexuality – lumping them into one bag in a manner inappropriate to the Latvian context, arguing with the threats of Western liberalism. The idea of women’s ordination and feminism (not feminist theology) is gradually taken up and seen in society in Jānis Vanags’s interpretation – that is, it is not the women themselves, but the archbishop, who defines for the lay people in the Church and for the wider public how feminism is to be understood and why women may not be ordained. Seeing that the atmosphere in the LELB is poisoned, the majority of the serving women withdraw from public statements and hope to prove their calling through their work.
The women faithfully continue to serve in congregations and to study, waiting for the beginning of an official theological dialogue and discussions in the Church, and hope to experience a miracle – that Archbishop Vanags will allow exceptions. At this time, Archbishop Vanags’s popularity in society continues to grow as an outwardly honest, conservative, and unbending man with his word of honor and a firm backbone. On the trailing wave of the Awakening, he still has high ratings of Church credibility and authority in society, but at the same time the processes of internal polarization of the Church are taking place.
When in 1995 the 20th anniversary of women’s ordination in Latvia is celebrated and the LLSTA is founded and registered, which is essentially the heir of VELLTA’s ideas, the archbishop and the dogmatic pastors, without delving into the essence of the matter, see the LLSTA as an aggressive feminist combat group. (A vivid illustration of this is Archbishop Vanags’s article “The Ideological Campaign Against Common Sense: Feminism”, published on 10 September 1995 in “Svētdienas Rīts”.) It is not the serving women, but the archbishop and the dogmatic pastors and their female followers who now “publicly control and manipulate” the theological arguments of women’s ordination and define the role of woman in the Church through criticism of feminism and a corresponding interpretation of Pauline theology.
“Miracles” do not happen – Vanags’s heart never does soften, his backbone remains unbending. The time of hope has ended, an intelligent dialogue on the question of women’s ordination does not begin, and the possibility of such a dialogue is poisoned for many years.
Source: LLSTA archival article
Photo from the archive of Indra Skuja-Grīslis. The photograph was taken marking the 20th anniversary of women’s ordination in Latvia – in 1995.