On 11 November of this year, Lāčplēsis Day, the ELCL Pastors’ Conference was held at the ELCL Youth Centre in Old Riga. It discussed several current matters in the Church’s ministry, including a decision on the proposed Constitutional amendments received by the ELCL Constitution Commission.
[..] The Pastors’ Conference went on to discuss the proposals submitted by the conventions of the ELCL Cēsis and Valmiera deanery districts to establish in the Constitution the ELCL’s position on the question of women’s ordination. Archbishop Jānis Vanags gave the pastors an overview of the history of this question – namely, that the ELCL began the practice of ordaining women in 1975 and continued it with interruptions until the 1992 Synod concluded that the question had not yet been sufficiently discussed. Since 1993 the practice of ordaining women in the ELCL has been suspended, and at present too, on the basis of its understanding of Holy Scripture, the ELCL does not newly ordain women to the office of pastor. The pastors of the Cēsis and Valmiera deanery districts, Gints Polis and Magnuss Olsons, set out for those present their reasoning as to why the question of women’s ordination should be regulated in the Constitution.
The head of the ELCL Legal Affairs Department, Dean Arnis Bušs, stressed that the Pastors’ Conference did not have to decide “for” or “against” the ordination of women, but rather had to decide whether to regulate this question in the ELCL Constitution and whether to task the Legal Commission with drafting proposals for amendments to the Constitution to be brought forward for a decision at the next ELCL Synod. For only the Synod, whose members are representatives of all ELCL congregations and the ELCL clergy, has the right to make amendments to the ELCL Constitution. In the course of the discussion, the pastors were also addressed by evangelist Ieva Zeiferte, who set out the position and recommendations of the Lutheran World Federation to its member churches on the question of women’s ordination. Pastor Uldis Jumejs, for his part, called on those present to be guided by the truth of Holy Scripture rather than by any benefit that might be gained from adopting one position or the other.
With 39 pastors voting in favour, 32 against and 11 pastors abstaining, the Pastors’ Conference resolved to specify the Constitutional regulation on the ordination of clergy by including in it, as one of the criteria, the sex of the person to be ordained, and also to ask the ELCL Legal Affairs Department to prepare corresponding amendments for changes to the Constitution for the next ELCL Synod. In addition, before the 2010 Synod, the ELCL must conduct a broad discussion on the theological basis for women’s ordination.
The news was published on the official ELCL website: www.lelb.lv 2009.11.17 14:38