Let us remember that, in the relatively recent history of humanity, women were denied the right to obtain a basic education and to enrol at university, they had no right to participate in municipal and state elections, no right to do certain jobs intended for men, to hold leading positions, or quite simply to marry for love. At present women can drive a car, fly into space, join the army, work as police officers and operate public transport. Unfortunately, in many countries the humiliation of women still takes place at the level of legislation — girls are denied the right to study, women are stoned or burned without any right to legal defence, women are given away as wives in early childhood, sold into sexual slavery, raped in zones of war and unrest, as well as circumcised against their will.
8 March is a day on which one can wonderfully look back on the development of civilization and mark the stage at which a particular society, country, and also the world as a whole, finds itself. The fundamental values of Christianity concerning the equality of every person — man, woman, slave, free — in God’s eyes are those on which the majority of the so-called Western countries were founded. It is not hard to notice that in these countries women have more rights than in other lands. However, the concept “Western countries” denotes a limited number of countries; in most of the world women are still regarded as a sexual object that can be acquired, spoiled, destroyed and dealt with as one pleases.
Jesus sent His disciples to preach the Gospel to the ends of the earth. And today we, the believers, can measure how effectively the Gospel has or has not reached the ends and corners of our world in a very concrete, practical area — the area of recognizing the value of woman. What does this area entail? It entails looking upon woman just as her Creator looks upon her — woman is created and formed in the image and likeness of God Himself. If woman is created in the image and likeness of God, then woman represents God in the world, just as man does, because God created both as “man” [humankind]. Any gospel that excludes or passes over in silence the factor of woman’s tremendous value in the space of the world and also of the church is neither Christian nor liberating, and cannot be called gospel, because good news to those women who have suffered and still suffer and weep en masse in the world for various reasons — including because of religion-based humiliation — is no good news at all, but rather a yoke of oppression and manipulation. If a woman lives in a Christian society and her divine image and representative value are called into question, then the gospel that is preached to these women has been robbed of the Holy Spirit and of the power that is characteristic of the Gospel. We remember well how Veidenbaums described such hypocritically comforting preaching: „just endure, it will be better in heaven”.
Let us remember our sisters all over the world, and let us pray that the Gospel may reach women too as true, liberating, inspiring, strengthening good news that transforms personalities and heals society! May God’s wonderful will be done on earth as it is in Heaven! Aļesja Lavrinoviča