Already on 29 September the members of the Latvian Lutheran Association of Women Theologians welcomed 12 theologians and pastors from Hannover and the professor of the history of Christianity Kathryn Louise Johnson from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. At St. Saviour’s Anglican Church we joined together in common prayer and then went to dinner to get acquainted.
Over the following days we divided into groups and travelled to the places of ministry of Latvian Lutheran theologians – to a service at the Anglican Church, to the church of Sāti, to the church of Augstroze, to Pauls Stradiņš Hospital, and to the Iļģuciems women’s prison.
On 2 October the women theologians took part in the conference “Woman in the Church and Society”, which was a joint project of the two associations. The conference was well attended. The small hall of the Europe House was full. Both local theologians and German theologians spoke at the conference, as well as the professor from America. The conference programme and description.
At the opening of the conference, the German theologians introduced themselves and their ministry. Most of the guests from Germany were pastors with on average 20 years of experience, some already – retired. The first lecture was about justice. Pastor Hanna Kreisel-Liebermann read Jesus’ parable of the unjust judge from the Gospel of Luke 18:1–8 and applied the situation to the issue of women’s ordination in Latvia. In the parable mentioned, the judge admitted that he had judged unjustly, because the woman wearied him with her persistence. Looking at the Reformation and the message of the Reformation that resounded in the 16th century, it is sad to conclude that the church did not ordain women even at the time of the Reformation, concluded pastor Hanna Kreisel-Liebermann. With a personal example of how a situation can change within a couple of years, the pastor encouraged the women in Latvia not to give up, and also expressed the support of the German theologians.
The conference continued with a double presentation, “Stories of Women in the Evangelical Lutheran Church” and “The Darkest Is the Moment Before Sunrise!”, in which the conference participants heard a presentation about women pastors in Latvia. This is a project that is still in the making, and whose outcome will be a documentary film about the stories of women in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia. The film is being made by professor and pastor Dace Balode and director Kristīne Briede. Professor Dace Balode briefly outlined the history of women’s ordination in Latvia, noting that the current prohibition on ordaining women is an unprecedented situation in the Lutheran world.
Master of Theology and doctoral candidate at Tilburg University Aļesja Lavrinoviča spoke about the possibilities of Greek syntax for reading exegetically “as in all the congregations of the saints” (1 Cor 14:33b) in six different ways. Despite so many possibilities, Bible translators and interpreters have consistently chosen (and contrary to the evidence of the ancient manuscripts) to connect the mentioned phrase with the silence of women.
The professor of church history from the USA, Kathryn Louise Johnson, in her presentation “Sharing the Bread of Wisdom: the Diverse Gifts of Women Theologians”, outlined the stories of women of various nationalities, races and ethnicities in the church around the globe, in order to show how the words about Wisdom spoken in the Proverbs of Solomon (Prov. 9) are fulfilled in the lives of women and enrich various peoples. Louise Johnson emphasised that women have received gifts from God. Each community becomes richer when women are given opportunities to share what they have received. A video of Kathryn Louise Johnson’s lecture.
Master of Philosophy, representative of the Quaker movement, as well as Satori columnist Iļja Marija Boļšakovs gave a paper on the role of women in the Quaker movement.
The conference was a wonderful way of gaining fellowship and encouragement. A bright, positive atmosphere full of hope accompanied the conference participants throughout the day.
At the close of the conference, representatives of both the Latvian and the German Associations of Women Theologians enjoyed a shared dinner in fellowship in the premises of the Faculty of Theology of the University of Latvia.
Pastor Ieva Puriņa presented to those present the wall calendar for 2019 that she had designed herself – a tribute to the Latvian Lutheran Association of Women Theologians. The calendar, titled “I Am”, depicts ten women theologians serving in Latvia, their mottos, interests and a description of their ministry in three languages (Latvian, English, German). The eleventh woman in the calendar is the ELCLA archbishop Lauma Zušēviča, who, through her ministry, encourages the women theologians and pastors in Latvia. July in the calendar is dedicated to the Latvian Lutheran Association of Women Theologians as a whole. The Association was founded on 17 July 1995.
Thanks be to God for the wonderful and encouraging time!
The conference photographs can be viewed in our photo gallery.
The LLSTA editorial team