On May 18, 2024, it will be 50 years since the ordination of Agnese Pone, the first woman pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia.
Agnese Pone was born on June 15, 1898, in Riga, into the family of the civil servant Francis Pone and his wife Alvīne Pone.
From 1915 to 1917 she studied at the P.A. Dolgih girls’ gymnasium in Riga, which during WWI was evacuated to Saint Petersburg. There she obtained the qualification of a home teacher. She began her theological education at the University of Tartu’s Faculty of Theology, where she studied from 1918 to 1919. She continued her studies at the UL Faculty of Theology and successfully completed them in 1928.
After passing her examinations, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia granted her the rights of a lay preacher, which allowed Agnese Pone to deliver sermons from the lectern, but not from the pulpit. She delivered her first sermon from the lectern at the Old St. Gertrude’s Church in Riga.
From 1931 to 1935 she also studied Baltic philology at the UL, especially Latvian literature. In 1936 she furthered her knowledge in theology and psychology in Zurich and Basel under Prof. E. Brunner and Prof. K. Barth.
She worked as a teacher of the Latvian language and of religious instruction in several schools – the Smiltene secondary school, the gymnasium of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia, and the M. Luther gymnasium in Riga; afterward she worked as a lecturer at the Latvian People’s University and was a member of the external examination commission at the Ministry of Education. From 1936 to 1939 she was the chairwoman of the Latvian Society of Women Theologians.
From 1932 to 1940 she was active in the student sorority “Varavīksne,” in the Association of Academically Educated Women of Latvia, and in the Young Women’s Christian Association, where she led the “Mothers’ School.”
In 1944 she set out on the refugee road to Germany, where she worked in the displaced persons camps of Germany and Austria, organizing and leading Mother and Child camps and children’s clubs. She began her ministry in Germany, in Fulda, and afterward for many years lived and ministered in Würzburg, performing the work of a pastor with the status of a vicar, which she obtained in 1952.
After 24 years of faithful ministry, Agnese Pone, as the first Latvian woman pastor, was ordained in Esslingen, Germany, on May 18, 1974. The ordination was performed by Archbishop Arnolds Lūsis, assisted by the deans Jānis Teriņš and Elmārs Voldemārs Rozītis.
Agnese Pone died in Würzburg on April 18, 1977.
This article was prepared using materials previously published on the LLSTA website and publicly available information from the “Womage” project on the website https://www.womage.lv/personas/agnese-pone (viewed 18.05.2024). All images show Agnese Pone, photos from the private archives of several people from the LELBP Germany region.