More than 120 women pastors from 18 countries sent a powerful signal during the celebration of the Reformation festival in Wittenberg. Gathered together, dressed in cassocks and guided by the motto “Here We Stand!”, the women drew attention to the fact that there are many churches where women face an unfavourable situation.
The motto refers to Martin Luther’s statement at the Diet of Worms in 1521, when he was challenged to renounce his teaching. Luther replied: “Here I stand and can do no other. God help me. Amen.”
And now, some 500 years later, women pastors gathered in the castle square of Wittenberg to take this symbolic photo. Among them were 17 bishops and women in leading church positions from Suriname, Indonesia, Zimbabwe, Latvia,* Norway and Greenland. The gathering took place in Wittenberg from 10 to 14 August in connection with the Summer Reformation context. The event was organised by the Lutheran World Federation programme “Women in Church and Society” and the German national LWF committee, on the initiative of Bishop Ilse Junkermann of the Evangelical Church in Central Germany.
The LWF affirms women in ordained ministry
Women are still not ordained in all churches. At present, 119 of the 145 member churches of the LWF ordain both men and women. In the report of the Twelfth Assembly in Windhoek, Namibia, the LWF affirmed the participation of women in ordained ministry. “We commend the 119 member churches that currently ordain men and women who have received the call to serve. As a communion that continues along this path that has been begun, we encourage the member church that has stopped ordaining women** to develop a process and a timeline to review this decision.”
Cathy Mui of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea called on those present not to stop fighting for the full participation of women in ordained ministry.
For women such as Cathy Mui of Papua New Guinea, a dream would come true if they could be ordained as pastors. Cathy Mui was one of the first women in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea to study theology.
“My church does not ordain women,” she declared, addressing the ordained women during the photo event in Wittenberg — the place where the Reformation began.
“Do not stop fighting, so that one day we too may stand together with you,” was her impassioned appeal to the women pastors.
Source: LWF news https://www.lutheranworld.org/news/here-we-stand
Photo: LWF/Marko Schoeneberg
View all the album’s photos on the LWF Facebook page
* Among the more than 120 women pastors, two women from Latvia were also captured in the photo — Bishop Emerita Jāna Jēruma-Grīnberga, who is the first woman to be ordained as a bishop in the Lutheran Church in Great Britain, as well as the evangelist and chaplain Rudīte Losāne, who is also the president of the Latvian Association of Lutheran Women Theologians. [LLSTA editorial note]
** Within the Lutheran World Federation there is only one church that once ordained women and stopped doing so. It is the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia, which had ordained women to the office of pastor since 1975, but on 3 June 2016 officially stopped ordaining women. Consequently, both the quotation from this article, which urges and addresses the church in the singular, and the text of the original report of the Twelfth LWF Assembly (see the photo below), are addressed to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia and its leader, Jānis Vanags. [LLSTA editorial note]
