As is known, on 14 February this year, pastor Juris Rubenis, after 36 years of service in the office of pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia, ended his ministry. Several of Rubenis’s colleagues say, however, that the leadership of the ELCL and certain clergy created intolerable conditions for Rubenis’s ministry, having planned the “ousting” of Juris Rubenis from the ELCL for a long time already.
The members of the Latvian Lutheran Women Theologians’ Association are saddened by the situation that has developed around Juris Rubenis, with fellow clergy taking a stand against an outstanding pastor and an extraordinarily intelligent Christian.
With the author’s permission, we republish pastor Linards Rozentāls’s description of the situation in connection with pastor Juris Rubenis’s request to the ELCL leadership to be released from pastoral ministry.
“Juris Rubenis, the longtime pastor of the Riga Luther Congregation and one of the most outstanding theologians in the history of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia, turned last week to Archbishop Jānis Vanags with a request to be released from the office of pastor. This request was accepted and confirmed.
It is important to know that this “voluntary” departure, as many will try to portray it, was the result of a more than year-long planned, deliberate and very conscious campaign against Juris Rubenis in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia. This campaign had its organizers and its ideologues. So too a legitimate church structure, which became the centre of this campaign. All this did not happen somewhere, but in an official church institution – the convent of pastors of the Riga provost’s district. Throughout this whole year, not a single voice was raised by the church leadership to object to it or to try to calm the deliberately stirred-up emotions. The provost of the Riga district, Krists Kalniņš, using the opportunities and resources of his office, over the course of the year gave this campaign the chance to begin, to gather momentum and to reach the heights of confrontation, and allowed the view of the campaign’s ideologue, the pastor of the Biķeri Congregation, Aleksandrs Bite, on Juris Rubenis to be dominant, not permitting the equal standing of other views.
Beginning with the notorious Holy Week convent of 11 April 2017, in this and subsequent convents Juris Rubenis was repeatedly accused, in an offensive and degrading manner, of the thoughts and views expressed by himself and by other authors, and even of world-renowned works of art found in the books “An Introduction to Christian Meditation” and “She and He”, being demanded to answer for them. Although there were attempts to label the news that appeared in the media about what happened at the 11 April convent as fake news, and in every way to smooth over and conceal what had happened, the further events spoke of an even more determined seriousness and purposefulness in the intent to get rid of Juris Rubenis. At the convents, calls were repeatedly voiced to demand that the bishops strip Juris Rubenis of the office of pastor. Only on 20 June was Juris Rubenis himself invited to the convent for the first time. To his request that they nonetheless carefully read the book that the convent so condemns and calls godless and destructive to the people of Latvia, only a few had responded. At this convent Juris Rubenis submitted to the provost and also to the archbishop, who was present at the convent, a letter with a request that the convent of the Riga provost’s district explain whether it stands in continuity with the theological tradition of the ELCL that has shaped this church and that has helped it to endure in Soviet times, and that has always been a constant part of this church – the tradition of broad and diverse theological thought, which creates an atmosphere that helps each person to mature spiritually and to find their own way. To this rhetorical question the convent, on 23 January 2018, confirmed an answer to Juris Rubenis that such a tradition “is not provided for in our church”, and at the same time submitted to the College of Bishops a demand to urgently convene a Pastors’ Conference that would evaluate the thoughts and views expressed by Juris Rubenis.
It is hard to overestimate the manipulative and hostile atmosphere of these convent discussions, the inability to listen, to understand. They were no “safe space”, such as the development strategy document of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia contemplates. These convents became a courtroom in which it was unpleasant to be. To give you at least a small insight – just two episodes that have remained most vividly in my memory. The first was the remark expressed in genuine indignation by pastor Ainārs Rendors (the person responsible for the entire church’s international relations!) about the painting by the world-famous artist Marc Chagall included in the book “She and He”. “What is that?”, he exclaimed in indignation, “What is that – Chagall? What pastor would put such a picture in his book?” And the second episode, when one of the newly ordained pastors fervently said: “Who is this Rubenis? I know the writings of the Lutheran Confessions, but I know nothing about Rubenis!”. This speech, it seems, so strongly influenced those present that the young man was immediately appointed a member of the working group that would prepare the reply letter to Juris Rubenis regarding the explanation he had requested of the convent.
Not knowing and not wanting to know, not understanding and not wanting to understand, to listen, to hear. Not wanting to respect and to love.” (Linards Rozentāls’s 14 February 2018 post on Facebook)
LELWTA editorial team