Having watched the interview with the long-serving acting pastor Agrita Staško, and knowing her personally, one wants to ask — dear LELB synod members who will gather this summer at the regular synod, and especially those who in your districts have already decided that at the synod you will vote for the amendment to point 133 of the LELB Constitution, which would completely and finally prohibit the ordination of women as pastors: does it really still seem to you that a woman cannot serve in a congregation as a pastor in the ordained office? Will it not be the case that the prohibition on ordaining women will be like a gravestone laid upon the little spring of life, from which the Church receives a special refreshment and healing? Already now the flow of this spring is blocked by various prohibitions and prejudices, yet still in some congregations, in some corners of Latvia, it quietly murmurs and flows, and the wise come to it to be refreshed. Are we not standing at a watershed, about to kill for the sake of the letter? Service to the New Testament is service to the life that comes from God: “not of the letter, but of the spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” (2 Cor. 3:6b) /Rudīte Losāne – LELB evangelist, chaplain, chair of the LLSTA board/
