Latvian Lutheran Bishop Jēruma-Grīnberga: “It takes time to get the hang of the Latvian system”

Latvian Lutheran Bishop Jēruma-Grīnberga: “It takes time to get the hang of the Latvian system”
 (An interview by Elmārs Barkāns, originally published in the newspaper “Kas Jauns” on 27 December 2014).
 
 
The first woman bishop in the history of the British Lutheran church, Latvian Jāna Jēruma-Grīnberga, has moved from London to Staicele. She has traded the proud title of Lutheran bishop for the office of an Anglican chaplain and now serves in Riga. In a Christmas mood, a conversation with Jāna, not only about Jesus, but also about quite worldly matters.
 
I have known Jāna for several years now. Until now, with some regularity, once every couple of years, I would run into her in Riga at some service to which she had come from London to serve. Now she no longer has to travel to visit Latvia from London, but rather the other way around – to visit England from Latvia. For several months now Jāna has been living in Latvia and is the pastor of the Riga Anglican congregation. She has taken over the office from the congregation’s long-serving pastor Juris Cālītis, who has now gone into retirement. Although Jāna herself has also gone into retirement – she has retired from the Lutheran Church of Great Britain and, together with her husband Jānis, has moved from the capital of the British Empire to Latvia’s capital of storks – Staicele.
 
Jāna has settled into Latvia and feels right at home. I arranged to meet her at the café “Vecrīga” on Riharda Vāgnera Street. No question about where it is and where Vāgnera Street is. At the appointed time, Jāna, who last year celebrated her 60th birthday, comes scurrying into “Vecrīga” with a sporty stride, a backpack and a winter cap on her head… and our conversation begins. About what surprises her in Latvia, about what Christmas is, about the old émigrés’ coexistence with the newcomers, about the bus to Ainaži and the green light at the traffic signal, and about teens with sagging trousers and odd caps. About what it is like to go from a Londoner to a Staicele local.
 
“The strangest thing is all sorts of bureaucracy”

• Why the journey home to Latvia right now? Of course, after the restoration of national independence you have been in Latvia countless times, but then off again to England… After all,  your not only physical but also, so to speak, “spiritual home” was there – the English Lutheran church, a career, work, family. And now there are also many recently emigrated compatriots who say – there is nothing to do in Latvia!
   
• That is the kind of odd question many people have asked me. And many also thought that life here and there would differ. I have been in Latvia several times, having spent at the longest six weeks here in a row. And on those occasions there was always the thought – at some point the holiday will end and I will have to pack up the suitcases and travel back to England. But right now that moment has not come at all…! So those earlier periods spent in Latvia have, without any particular pain or longing for England, turned into a longer period.
   
  The only thing I miss, of course, is the children, family members and friends. But they all come to Latvia from time to time anyway. We have few friends who have not been to Latvia and would not come here again. And, thank God, there is Skype; I talk with my girls over it often.
   
  The strangest thing we encountered here is all sorts of bureaucracy. Perhaps no worse than in England, but in any case different. It takes time before you understand and “get the hang of” this Latvian system.
   
• And what is this particular Latvian bureaucratic system like?
   
• It is with regard to all sorts of insurance, to the signing of contracts and other things. I had to sign an employment contract, and that was quite different from in England. The processes here and there are very, very different. That also applies to the healthcare system. For us as older people, almost the first task was to register with a competent doctor, which we have also found – we have a very nice family doctor. But here the healthcare system works completely differently from in England. At first we simply did not understand where to go, how to act, how to even register with a doctor.
   
  Then we also had to think about how to resolve the question of the e-ticket, how to get it. The first weeks went by in that kind of walking around offices, the CSDD and other institutions. But you do get used to that Latvian system over time…
   
  There are, of course, many things that work better here than in England. That can probably be explained by the fact that Latvia is a smaller country and consequently all the systems here are less complicated.
   
• What are these good things?
   
• One, for example, is the transport system. We are from London, where in recent years, if I had to meet someone somewhere, I would budget at least half an hour in reserve, because I could never know whether something might break down somewhere, whether a train might suddenly fail to arrive. Here, on the other hand, public transport in my perception works first-rate. In Riga, and elsewhere too. Now, for example, I travel every week by bus to Ainaži, and those buses are very good, run frequently, and are comfortable.
   
  “A garden, air, quiet, peace. Fantastic!”
• But you do have to travel by bus not only around Riga, but also around Vidzeme, since you live in Staicele, after all, which is called the capital of storks.
   
• The property in Staicele where we live belonged to the family of my half-sister, the publicist and writer Inga Jēruma. Inga’s grandfather was the Staicele blacksmith, so a very important person in the little town. My husband and I bought this property from Inga’s mother at one time and built ourselves a new house there.
   
  The house is in town; we are not used to living somewhere secluded, in deep rural solitude. At one point we did think it would be nice to buy a rural property somewhere, but we realized that we are not the kind of people who could now take up setting up some sort of farmstead. In our little town of Staicele we have a large garden, fresh air, quiet and peace. Fantastic! I cannot say a single bad word about Staicele.
   
• People say that the Latvian countryside is dying out, that people are leaving “the land.” Can that be felt in Staicele?
   
• In one respect, conditions in Staicele are very hard. There used to be a large and powerful paper mill in the town, which was closed in the first years after the regaining of independence. It became uneconomical, there were no longer all the Soviet orders, and there were also environmental considerations, since paper production is not exactly the most environmentally friendly thing. But with that, almost the only employer in Staicele disappeared.
   
  Staicele has lost a great many inhabitants, who now live abroad or in Riga. Hope is brought by the fact that there is now a football school in Staicele, supported by the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA), to which children come to study from all over Latvia. A shop that had been closed for a very long time has just opened, and a café too, which Staicele had not had for many years. So there are positive developments, but life is not easy for people, there is no work…
   
  Still, I remember that many years ago my cousin and I drove to Aglona on 15 August, and along the way, over a long stretch of road, we did not see a single plowed field. Now that is no longer so; the fields are more tended.
   
  “In England there is an emergency situation. The suicide rate is very high”
• And in England, are the fields tended?
   
• In England, too, there is essentially an emergency situation. A big problem is that in England the large retail chains have a monopoly and they buy agricultural goods often below cost; these four or five retail chains call the shots. And farmers go bankrupt. The suicide rate among English farmers is very, very high. Hundreds of farms go bankrupt every year; it does not pay off to operate at a loss year after year. The British government’s stance is – never mind, we will buy from abroad! The countryside is simply emptying out. Essentially it is a catastrophe.
   
• More or less we, in Latvia, know about the post-war Latvian émigré experience in the Western world. Yet there is one question that nags at me. After the war, Latvians in the West worked in factories, became doctors, engineers, architects, but not much has been heard about them becoming farmers, agriculturalists, in the free world.
   
• There were, in fact, very many. For example, those who came to England after the war were sent to various jobs, and many worked in agriculture, who later also stayed to work in the countryside. A portion, of course, did not – they moved to the cities. There once were many farmers who were engaged in growing fruit and vegetables. But perhaps there is not much documentation about it.
   
  My father, too, for example, after ending up in England, was sent to a camp to work in the countryside, and as a result he ruined his pianist’s fingers and afterward could no longer be a professional pianist, because farm work is just not compatible with playing the piano.
   
  “I cross the street at a red light, because in London everyone does”
   – What surprises you, what seems stranger than in England in quite everyday living in Latvia now – going to the shop, riding the bus, just being out on the street?
   
• That is a question I can no longer answer. The two of us have already been here long enough. When we started traveling to Latvia, it seemed to me that the street culture here was more foreign and less friendly. Back then people jostled terribly, were unkind to one another in shops. Now that, if not entirely, then to a large extent has disappeared; people have become more polite. Isn’t that so?
   
• That could be. I remember that in the early 1990s rarely did any car stop at a pedestrian crossing, and practically everyone ran across the street at a red light. Now, however, that is no longer the case.
   
• I, however, do cross the street at a red light, because in London no one waits for a green light. There they simply go, and I somehow just cannot stand still in one spot.
   
  I remember that recently at the Stacijas Square stop I was waiting for the tram. At the stop there stood a little gang of boys, teenagers – trousers sagging somewhere below the hips, shoelaces undone, some sort of caps stuck on their heads, themselves hunched over. Typical boys. From the other direction comes yet another such gang of boys with sagging trousers. In England I would have been nervous – will there be some friction or not?! The newcomers came up, politely shook hands with the boys standing at the stop, and went on. Simply fantastic! Something like that is possible only in Riga. Here there is a courtesy that has been instilled in people. And that is great, beautiful!
  Nothing particularly foreign, compared with England, seems so here.
   
  “You can’t just wash off that bishop’s status in the shower”
• So much for “earthly life.” But you do also have more than just this earthly life. You are a bishop of the Lutheran church. The Latvian Lutheran church, under the leadership of Archbishop Jānis Vanags, does not recognize women ascending to the pulpit, let alone women who can oversee their male colleagues – bishops. What is your status now in the church where you serve?
   
• In the English Lutheran church I am a bishop emerita, that is, retired. In Riga, on the other hand, I serve in the Anglican Church, where for many years the congregation’s pastor was Juris Cālītis, who here in Latvia is something of an iconic figure. Juris retired at the end of September and now I am replacing him. Now I am a chaplain of the Anglican congregation, which is very nice, and I am extremely grateful for this opportunity to be in the congregation. There can be nothing better for a pastor than to live together with one’s flock.
   
  I am still a Lutheran; I have not become an Anglican. I serve in the Anglican congregation because the Porvoo Agreement allows it (the agreement concluded in 1992 in the Finnish town of Porvoo between the Lutheran and Anglican churches, which, among other things, also provides for the mutual recognition of clergy – ed.). In the Anglican Church, of course, I do not count as a bishop – there I am a chaplain. But that bishop’s status of mine is something irreversible; apparently you can’t just wash it off in the shower.
   
  Our Anglican congregation also cooperates with the congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia Abroad in Riga, one of whose two pastors, Klāvs Bērziņš, is a very, very old friend of mine. I have known him… I don’t even want to say how many years. Forty-five! As a result, our friendship and opportunities for cooperation are great.
   
  In many parts of the world, Anglicans and Lutherans cooperate very, very closely; we are extremely kindred churches. On the one hand, our origins are the same; both churches descend from the so-called church of conscience, from the Reformation; the liturgy (the order of the service – ed.) is very similar for us, and our theological positions on the whole are not very different.
   
• Of course, I cannot help but ask about your current attitude toward the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia here, in the homeland, which, unlike the émigré Latvian church, does not recognize women clergy, is even very conservative in its doctrine, and is hardly thrilled that recently, for the first time in its history, a woman became a bishop in the Anglican Church.
   
• I hope that in the future we will be able to develop good relations, because in principle the Latvian Lutheran church does, after all, have various relations with the Church of England, if only through the Porvoo Agreement, in which the Latvian church, however, still has only observer status. Likewise, Riga Cathedral has a sister-congregation relationship with Salisbury Cathedral. Those relations are already very close, so I hope that we will be able to develop good and friendly collegial relations.
   
  “It’s some kind of nightmare!”
• But reading the internet comments, not only about the workings of our government, the Saeima, the officials, the police and so on, but also about the attitude toward the church, as well as the bickering of Christians among themselves, one does not get the conviction that some friendly relations could suddenly set in, even among brothers and sisters of one faith…
   
• Well, those comment writers are not the majority of society. They are one segment of people who do nothing but “churn out” those comments. On the websites of English newspapers, where comments are allowed, there are moderators who delete the most venomous, the most personally insulting and the most hate-mongering comments. In Latvia this system ought to be introduced at the first opportunity. After all, it helps no one for all of that to be published. It’s some kind of nightmare!!!
   
• In your opinion, where do all these nightmares come from? Pastors in their sermons, after all, call on people to be good, psychologists try to put our thoughts in order, teachers teach wisdom, sociologists and political scientists shame the unrestrained. And in the end God, too, after all, does not want us to live in hatred and nightmares…
   
• Regarding all of this I have a rather superficial observation, since I have not lived here too long to have studied it. It seems to me that people have a fear of the foreign, of the unknown, because in Latvia society was for quite a long time hermetically sealed, where during the time of the Soviet system everything was essentially rather static, where new ideas did not “filter in” too easily. Perhaps some time has to pass for people to understand that the foreign is not always to be feared, that what is different is not threatening and not to be condemned.
   
  I would not want to talk about the gay issue in this interview, but one thing I have noticed: in comments on articles on the gay topic we often read: let them do what they want, but let them not foist themselves on me! Then I would like to ask that person: at what moment and where has a single gay person foisted himself on you? Where does this idea come from that a person who is gay constantly foists himself on other people, tries to talk them into becoming gay? I do not know what it is these comment writers are afraid of, because in fact gay people do not foist themselves on anyone; this view is a myth.
   
  There is a sense that people hold the view that whatever is different wants to convert them, remake them and impose on them its views on life, disrupt the life-world they have built, but usually that is just not the case. People can live in parallel with one another, interact and understand one another.
   
• How much time has to pass for these views – hatred, incomprehension, fear – to finally change in our society? The British, after all, also had to overcome all of that at one time.
   
• I remember my childhood in England. When I was a child, very often outside pubs or hotels it was written that one was not allowed to enter in work clothes, as well as Gypsies and Black people. Just like that… That, of course, is no longer allowed now; the law forbids it. And laws do play a role in this regard. I understand that a law does not actually change a person’s thoughts and psychology, but nonetheless, if such laws are adopted, then that in the end inevitably influences society as well.
   
• Is it really true that, in this case, one of the main roles was played by a law adopted by the secular authorities?
   
• It is a kind of positive enchanted circle. Society’s views begin to change, people get to know one another, understand that the Black person, the Gypsy or the Jew is a human being, is nothing to be afraid of. A process of un-fearing begins, and then you understand that you must not wrong them, then the state adopts a law, and then all of that takes on such progressive momentum.
   
  “The church and the good news have not gone anywhere”
• What will you say in your Christmas sermon in the Anglican Church?
   
• Unfortunately there will be no sermon, that’s the trouble. On the festival evening we have a service at which there is no sermon – there are only hymns and readings of Holy Scripture.
   
• But if there were a sermon, what would you say in it?
   
• What I would want to say is probably that the good news of Jesus has not gone anywhere, that it is right here and continues to speak to people. The fact that in the first years after the regaining of independence the churches in Latvia were full, people went to church, were searching for something, and now that is no longer so, the churches are emptier, that people have not continued what was there 20 years ago, does not at all mean that the church has disappeared. It does not mean that the message of Jesus has disappeared!
  Jesus did, after all, come into this world as a little child – offendable, touchable, woundable – in order to save and love us, to express His love for the human being, no matter who you may be, no matter how great a sinner you may be. I think this is a message that can be told not only at Christmas, but all year round.
  And if we as a congregation can proclaim it not only in sermons, but also live it out in everyday life. To live in such a way that Jesus has loved you and consequently you, too, love others, and you want to pass this very important message on to everyone and always. I think our Anglican congregation in Riga is one of those that truly tries to do this – with a seniors’ club, with a soup kitchen for the homeless, with the fact that our doors are always open to everyone, to anyone. Just as Jesus was willing to sit at one table with thieves and prostitutes, and even with tax collectors, with VID inspectors. In this case we are Jesus’s hands and feet, the mouth that passes on this message, the message for which He was willing to die.
   
  “I don’t think Latvians in England fight among themselves”
• And in conclusion, about the environment you recently left. What is the current Latvian community in England like? Can the old émigrés coexist with the thousands of newcomers, the guest workers? Do the old émigrés fight with the newcomers from Latvia who left the homeland not for political but for economic reasons?
   
• I don’t think they fight among themselves in England, and thank God. I grant that there are places where there is quite a lot of misunderstanding between the old émigrés and the newcomers, but in England, I think, a fairly unified Latvian community has been quite successfully formed. But not a completely unified society, because where is there such a thing outside the gates of paradise? The Latvian National Council in Great Britain (LNPL) has worked very hard on it – it holds seminars, there are very many little Latvian schools: both those that have existed since 1948 and those that arose last year. In the LNPL itself, too, there is quite a large percentage of representatives from among the newcomers. For example, in the London Latvian Choir, conducted by Lilija Zobens, more than half are newcomers.
   
• Looking at the newcomers from the old émigrés’ point of view – will they return to Latvia in the future? 
   
• Not all of them, of course, want to. Some have found, outside Latvia, the place where they want to be and live, and have started families there. But that does not at all mean that they are lost to Latvia, because they have ties and family in Latvia. Somewhere there is that statistic about how much money flows into Latvia from those who live abroad. And it is a lot! It is a great support for the Latvian economy, not to mention the education and experience that people gain in England. And geographically England is not far from Latvia, after all. The traffic back and forth is already quite large – people move both that way and this way. From our generation, too, the old émigrés, there are quite a few who have now moved to Latvia.
  For those who maintain ties with Latvians, there will always be the opportunity to return. For those who choose not to maintain ties, of course, it will be harder, because the shock of returning can sometimes be greater than the culture shock you experienced when moving from Latvia to England. Returning to a place where you once lived, you expect that the place will be the same as it was when you left, but it is no longer like that – people have changed, places have changed, cultures have changed.
   
   
   
  Jāna Jēruma-Grīnberga (from the website of the Riga Christ Lutheran Congregation)
   

Jāna Jēruma-Grīnberga was born in 1953 in London and grew up in a Latvian family. Her father was the composer and conductor Alberts Jērums, her mother Lauma, née Grigors, the daughter of the founder of the Riga Christ Lutheran Congregation.
Jāna first studied biochemistry at the University of London, then completed nursing school and worked both in intensive care and in a family doctor’s practice.
 
The calling to follow Christ became ever more irresistible, until in 1993 she enrolled in the Pastoral Theology course at Oak Hill College. She passed her examinations both before the Examination Commission of the Latvian Lutheran Church Abroad and before the then dean of the Faculty of Theology of the University of Latvia, Professor Vilis Vārsbergs. After her ordination in the autumn of 1997, she worked first in the London Latvian Lutheran congregation, later in the St. Anne and St. Agnes congregation of the Lutheran Church of Great Britain, at the same time also carrying out the duties of a provost. In 2008 she was elected bishop of the Lutheran Church of Great Britain, thus becoming the first woman bishop in the history of England. On 17 January 2009 the ceremony of the bishop’s consecration (installation in office) took place.
 
In her family there are her husband Jānis and two daughters, Laila and Anna. In her free time she loves to read, sing and swim. Jāna Jēruma-Grīnberga is possibly the only Lutheran bishop who loves to watch the English national sport – cricket, and speaks Latvian and Swahili.
 
Elmārs Barkāns/Kasjauns.lv
 
The text of the interview is republished with the permission of the interview’s author, Elmārs Barkāns.