On 10 April 2010, Maria Jepsen, bishop of the North Elbian Evangelical Lutheran Church (Germany), visited Riga. She took part in the consecration service of ELCL bishop Guntars Dimants, delivered a greeting address at the formal reception, and met with the members of the Latvian Lutheran Women Theologians’ Association (LLWTA).
During the meeting with the LLWTA she affirmed that the ELCL’s attitude towards the question of women’s ordination is a constant topic of discussion in various forums of the Lutheran church. “You have not been forgotten or abandoned,” she said.
The North Elbian Evangelical Lutheran Church has supported and will support the LLWTA’s efforts to keep up the discussions with the ELCL on this topic, and will also keep track of any existing or possible discriminatory measures against women serving in the ELCL.
As a member of the Council of the Lutheran World Federation, M. Jepsen affirmed that the LWF’s member organisations may hold differing views on homosexuality, but the question of women’s ordination is unequivocally a topic to be supported.
This was not Bishop M. Jepsen’s first meeting with women serving in the ELCL. The first meeting took place soon after the election of Archbishop Jānis Vanags in 1993.
The meeting with Bishop M. Jepsen was inspiring and strengthening. Her bearing and vision left no doubt about the bishop’s anointing. She was the first woman in the world to be elected a bishop in the Lutheran Church, in 1992. By now she has 18 years of experience serving in this office. A wise and experienced spiritual and political leader – that is the Maria Jepsen we encountered once again in Riga.
Biography of the bishop of the North Elbian Evangelical Lutheran Church (Germany)
Maria Jepsen
Maria Jepsen was born on 19 January 1945 in Bad Segeberg, where she also finished secondary school. After graduating in 1964, she studied classical philology and Protestant theology in Tübingen, Kiel and Marburg. In 1970 M. Jepsen completed her university studies with her first theology degree in Kiel and began a vicariate in the Lemsahl-Mellingstedt parish in the suburbs of Hamburg. During this time she married the vicar Peter Jepsen. In 1972 she defended her second theology degree in Kiel.
In 1972, together with her husband, M. Jepsen began serving in Meldorf (Dithmarschen) as a parish pastor, then in 1977 moved to Puravi, where she remained until 1990. In 1991 she became a dean at the Hamburg-Harburg church. On 4 April 1992 the Synod of the North Elbian Evangelical Lutheran Church elected M. Jepsen bishop of Hamburg. She thus became the first female Lutheran bishop in the world. In 2002 she was elected for a further ten years.
Since 1991 Maria Jepsen has been a member of the Diaconia, Mission and Ecumenism committees. Since 1992 she has been chair of the Protestant missionary work in Germany; since 1998 she has been chair of the board of the Hamburg Mission Academy. In July 2003 she became a member of the Council of the Lutheran World Federation. In 2005 M. Jepsen was elected to the German Seamen’s Mission Council.
In her work her priorities are diaconal work, ecumenism and interfaith relations. In Hamburg she has launched a faith forum where representatives of the various large and small denominations of the Hanseatic cities meet regularly. In both ecumenical and secular contexts, women’s right to speak out is strengthened.
In socio-political life, M. Jepsen strives with all her might to strengthen Christian values and brings them into public debate, for example by prompting discussions about beggars and refugees and others who are discriminated against.