The first Latvian women preachers, though unordained, are found in the 18th-century Moravian congregations. The Moravian congregations — the Bohemian Brethren Herrnhuter movement, founded in 1727 by Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf — were one of the offshoots of Pietism. Pietism was a renewal movement within German Lutheranism which, in contrast to orthodox confessionalism, sought to give room to subjectivism, to the individual confession of faith, and to encourage the personal contribution of congregation members to the life of the church. 1
Women preachers in Herrnhutism
Women as preachers in Herrnhutism stem from N. Zinzendorf’s theology, in which the Holy Spirit is addressed in the feminine and called mother. Interestingly, as an example for characterizing the work of the Holy Spirit, N. Zinzendorf cited Anna Nitschmann, who in 1730 was elected an elder and leader of the unmarried women. And she remained in this ministry until her marriage to Zinzendorf in 1756. Taking part in women’s ordination services, she wore purple garments, which traditionally symbolize episcopal ministry.
The founder of the Herrnhuters also taught that the souls of all people are feminine — this allowed him to justify the paradoxical doctrine that the only true man is Christ, and that all men, like women, will in mystical union be “wedded” to their “eternal spouse”. 2
Thanks to the popularity of the Moravian movement in the Baltics, as well as the educational reforms of the Swedish period, the level of girls’ education was already higher in the 18th century than in the Russian governorates. The schooling of girls in primary schools in the Vidzeme and Courland governorates was a matter of course in the 19th century. Both in towns and in the countryside, girls in primary schools, elementary schools, or home schools had the opportunity to acquire reading and writing skills, the catechism, and the basics of arithmetic. 3
As elsewhere in the world, in the Latvian Herrnhuter rank system each group, differentiated by sex and family status, had its own male and female leaders. In her book devoted to the Latvian woman, Lilija Brante refers to writings held in the archive of the Moravian Unity, in which a German Herrnhuter leader devotes words of praise to the Latvian woman. In an account written at the beginning of the 19th century, the Moravian worker K. Freitāgs tells of the maidens’ rank festival in Lintene (near Korva manor), where 400 to 500 women gathered on Saturday evenings to read spiritual autobiographies and discuss their experiences. Then, after a brief night’s rest, as early as two in the morning they were woken for communal singing, prayers, and the hearing of a sermon. Although in the 19th century, as a result of the institutionalization of Herrnhutism and the pressure of the Lutheran Church, these peculiarities gradually disappeared, the tradition of the rank festivals survived for a long time. In the 1870s Matīss Kaudzīte wrote that in the meeting houses people continued to celebrate the rank festivals and gatherings. 4
1 Balodis A. “Pietism and the Herrnhuter movement” in “The History of Latvia and the Latvian People” (Kabata, 1990), p. 113.
2 Tēraudkalns V. “The Road to the Ordination of Lutheran Women in Latvia”, University of Latvia Faculty of Theology journal “Ceļš” no. 57/2006 Klints, pp. 34–35.
3 Koroļova I., Trapenciere I. “A Brief Historical Overview: Some Facts and Figures about Women in Latvia” in Trapenciere I. (ed.) “Woman on the Way” (Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Latvian Academy of Sciences, 1992), p. 236.
4 Tēraudkalns V. “The Road to the Ordination of Lutheran Women in Latvia”, University of Latvia Faculty of Theology journal “Ceļš” no. 57/2006, Klints, pp. 34–35.
Dr. phil. Valdis Tēraudkalns, “The Road to the Ordination of Lutheran Women in Latvia”, from the University of Latvia Faculty of Theology journal Ceļš no. 57 (Klints, 2006)