On 13 September of this year, the bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Northern Germany, Gerhard Ulrich, sent a letter to the archbishop of the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church, Jānis Vanags, pointing out that the decision taken at the LELB Synod over the summer to ban the ordination of women had not gone unnoticed in the German church and in the wider Lutheran world. In the letter the bishop expresses his sorrow that the Latvian church has chosen to ignore the guidelines of the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe, in which the member churches have agreed that the Lutheran churches in Europe ordain women to spiritual office because it accords „with the present-day Reformation understanding of spiritual office” and regard the ordination of women as „a gift and blessing of the Holy Spirit, and will not depart from this practice, for in their understanding it is a matter of principle.”
The letter also does not omit discussions of a financial nature, namely about the termination of the financial support to the Consistory of the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church which the North German church had provided to the LELB over the course of several years.
The letter, which was addressed to LELB archbishop Jānis Vanags, was also forwarded for information to the leadership of the LELBĀL, the Faculty of Theology of the University of Latvia, the journal Svētdienas Rīts and others.
We republish here the translation of the letter into Latvian.
13 September 2016
Esteemed Archbishop Mr Jānis Vanags,
dear brother in Christ,
three months have now passed since the synod of the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church decided to permit in future only the ordination of men. Already in my letter of 29 June 2015 to you and the LELB leadership I expressed my concern about the path your church had chosen. In the past months I have spoken with many brothers and sisters in the Latvian and German Lutheran churches, as well as in the Lutheran World Federation. Now, in my view, the right moment has come for me to express more precisely my opinion about the situation that has arisen.
It is important to me, even after this synod decision, to continue the conversations with all the Lutheran churches in Latvia. We need this dialogue especially for theological reasons. For us Lutherans in particular, there can be no difference between men and women in the ministry. In baptism all Christians are equally called to be members of the congregation and priests: “Whoever has crawled out of baptism may boast that he has already been consecrated as priest, bishop and pope,” – says Martin Luther in the treatise “To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation”. The comprehensive participation and full equality of men and women in the life of the church follows from a deeper understanding of our Reformation confession of faith.
For this reason, after your decision our relations cannot continue unchanged. All the churches of the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe (CPCE) have committed to be guided in their work by the document “Ministry, Ordination, Episkopé and Theological Education”. Its paragraph 58 states: “The CPCE churches have shaped the practice of the ordination of women in accordance with the present-day Reformation understanding of spiritual office. [..] They regard the ordination of women as a gift and blessing of the Holy Spirit and will not depart from this practice, for in their understanding it is a matter of principle.”
And in paragraph 57 the CPCE churches stress “that their position on the ministry of women is not an object of bargaining .. and they will not accept that other churches treat their spiritual workers differently depending on sex. Therefore they will also not accept those models of church that reject the ordination of women or do not recognize the equality of ordained women”. Therefore I ask you, dear brother Jānis Vanags, to encourage a reconsideration of the decision taken in June.
At this synod many representatives of your church expressed an understanding of Scripture and of office that differs substantially from the understanding of our church. In the Lutheran understanding, believers must obey not pastors and bishops, but solely Christ, the Word of God born in the flesh. Yet obedience to the Word of God means more than holding to the letter.
I think that here we should continue the theological discussion. We need this conversation so that in the future, too, our churches can work together at the European level. At the synod we heard, regarding the changes to the constitution, many arguments that were political rather than theologically grounded. In essence, they may also testify to a turning away from the values expressed by the Charta Oecumenica.
Our conversations are one thing; the practical questions connected with our partnership are another. Financial support is only one aspect of our long-standing relations. As we have already informed you, the Northern Church, following its conscience, will discontinue its financial support to the Consistory. Pastor Christa Hunzinger has already informed the project coordinator Kristīne Rozenbaums of this. But we continue to feel solidarity with your church. We will now particularly support the sisters and brothers who have to suffer from the consequences of the decision taken at the synod. Furthermore, like the Evangelical Church in Germany, in the past months we have established or deepened contacts with other Lutheran churches in Latvia – with the Latvian region of the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church Abroad and the German Evangelical Lutheran Church in Latvia.
In the future, too, it will be important for our church to support the work of diaconia in Latvia. But if the congregations that work in the field of diaconia must, according to your church’s views, give up their buildings, which were also maintained and renovated with our funds, then the question arises for us to what extent we can still support your church in this field.
Likewise we must clarify how your congregations will treat our ordained women pastors during a visit. In the “Guidelines for Participation in the CPCE” one reads: “In accordance with point 33 of the Leuenberg Agreement, the signatory churches commit to mutually recognize the ordination of other churches, including also the ordination of women practised in almost all CPCE churches.” (Point 6 of the Guidelines) I assume that this is not disputed.
With sorrow I receive the news of serious disputes, including legal ones, over the houses of worship of those Evangelical Lutheran congregations which, for serious theological reasons, can no longer belong to your church.
Therefore I ask you, esteemed brother Jānis Vanags, to make known how you see the future of our relations. This question is particularly heightened by the news that Hans Martin Jensons, before his election to the office of bishop of the Liepāja diocese, rejected at the synod relations with those churches that ordain women. This question is further heightened by your choice of which churches’ representatives were invited to the consecration of bishop Hans Martin Jensons and which were not.
As you see, this development of events causes us concern. Yet let us not grow weary of remaining bound in intercession one for another.
Dear brother Jānis Vanags, I ask you in the near future to give a reply and to set out your vision of how we might build the partnership in future. It would be good if I could report on this to our synod in November.
With a brotherly greeting
bishop Gerhard Ulrich
President of the Church Office of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Northern Germany
For information:
It follows from the letter that the practice of the LELB differs from the fundamental principles on questions of spiritual office and theological education, on which an agreement has been adopted in the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe. The LELB is a member church of the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe, even though it does not directly mention this in the „Ecumenism” section of its website.
In the said section on Ecumenism it is written that the LELB „has become involved in various ecumenical organizations and dialogues”. Among the organizations listed thereafter are the Lutheran World Federation, the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe and the Porvoo Communion.
The Lutheran World Federation, of which the LELB is also a member church, has over the course of several years issued documents that defend and biblically substantiate the ordination of women in the Lutheran churches. In 2009, for example, the LWF congress voted for the document „It will not be so among you! Faith reflections on gender and power” and adopted the decision “to encourage the LWF member churches to participate actively in the process leading to the development of the LWF gender policy”. Two resolutions followed – “LWF Principles of Inclusivity” and “Resolution on Gender Justice”. In the latter document the LWF urges member churches:that do not ordain women, with a prayerfully permeated attitude, to reconsider such avoidance and its effect on this matter on those who are not allowed to realize their God-given calling because these people are women. The whole church experiences the pain of such exclusion, of losing God-given gifts.
At the end of 2013 the LWF adopted a unified document “Position on Gender Justice” (available in Latvian), which states that for the Lutheran World Federation The participation of women in ordained spiritual work is a vital, though not the only, step towards building an inclusive communion. The full participation of women and men in decision-making is another crucially important step on the path towards inclusivity. The LWF embodies “ecclesia semper reformanda est” – the idea of a continuous process of reformation in its many and various expressions.
As another cooperation organization, the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe (Community of Protestant Churches in Europe; abbreviated – CPCE) is mentioned on the LELB website. Indeed, the LELB is included in the list of CPCE member churches. However, the LELB’s participation in the organization is most likely formal, and the LELB has distanced itself from any recommendations or obligations that arise from the documents adopted in the community, as the North German bishop Gerhard Ulrich noted in his letter.
After the LELB Synod held in Riga on 3 June, the CPCE on its website expressed very great concern about the Synod’s decision. The CPCE also poses a question to the LELB: Will the Latvian church recognize the ministry of women with Word and Sacrament in other member churches of the communion or not? The CPCE also notes that on 11 June 2016 the Presidium of the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe also wrote a letter to the LELB, in which they ask for a binding answer to the question of the recognition or non-recognition of women’s ministry, and also offer to visit the Latvian church in order to discuss this matter in person.
In the Porvoo Communion, as the LELB website correctly notes, the Latvian church holds observer status, and consequently the LELB has no duty or obligation to participate in the altar and pulpit fellowship established by the Porvoo Communion, which exists among Lutheran and Anglican ministers. With regard to the question of the ordination of women, point 38 of the Porvoo Declaration contains the following statement:
God the Holy Spirit pours out His gifts upon the whole Church (Eph. 4:11-13, 1 Cor 12:4-11), and raises up men and women, both lay and ordained, to contribute to the care of the communion.
The Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church, as can be seen, is on the formal list of international Lutheran and ecumenical organizations, yet out of the five organizations mentioned in the “Ecumenism” section of the LELB website, the LELB does not observe the operating principles and fellowship of the three organizations just listed; thus this Ecumenism of the LELB takes place somewhere on paper, not in practice.
Aļesja Lavrinoviča