Kiel (news of the German Evangelical Lutheran Church)
Hamburg Bishop Kirsten Fehrs has objected to actions in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia that provide for the abolition of women’s ordination. „It is a scandal — to exclude women from the office of pastor,” Fehrs said at the church of the University of Kiel on 15 February of this year. At the end of October 2015, a pastors’ conference took place in Latvia, at which a single proposal was put forward, on which a vote is to be held at the church Synod at the beginning of June. According to this proposal, the order of the Latvian church will be amended in such a way that henceforth only men will be able to become pastors. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Latvia has approximately 580,000 church members.
Pastors’ rights and duties
According to the Gustav Adolf Foundation — which directs the work of the German Evangelical Church in foreign missions — it is already now almost impossible for women in Latvia to work as pastors. Since the election of Jānis Vanags as archbishop in 1993, women’s ordination has been discontinued. Young women theologians can be ordained only outside Latvia, in the Lutheran church (in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia Abroad — translator’s note).
At the moment of ordination, women theologians obtain the rights and duties of a pastor. This includes the proclamation of the Word, the administration of baptism and Holy Communion, as well as pastoral confidentiality. In the North Elbian Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany — in Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania — at the end of 2014 there were 995 male pastors and 661 female pastors actively serving, that is, approximately 40% are women.
In Germany, this struggle for women’s access to the office of pastor began about 100 years ago, at a time when women could be admitted to evangelical theology study programmes. Yet for another 50 years or so they were denied the chance to become pastors. At the national level, women were able to become pastors at the end of the fifties. Resistance began later, when the requirement of celibacy was abolished, which had allowed only unmarried women access to the office of pastor. In the churches of the Lutheran World Federation, women have the right to hold spiritual offices and leadership positions. Of the 145 member churches of the LWF, approximately 30 object to women’s ordination.
16 February
Source: EKD ((Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland) “Bischöfin Fehrs protestiert gegen die Abschaffung der Frauenordination in Lettland”
Photo: Bishop Kirsten Fehrs. Evangelisch-Lutherische Christuskirchengemeinde Pinneberg
http://christuskirche-pinneberg.de
LLSTA editorial board