Just under three months have passed since the ordination as pastor of Rudīte Losāne – LLSTA president, evangelist and prison chaplain. Ever since last autumn, Pastor Rudīte Losāne has not gone unnoticed by journalists. Newspapers and TV reports write and talk about Pastor Rudīte Losāne. We offer you a few quotes from Latvian media that have interviewed Rudīte Losāne over these past few months.
As of today, Latvia has one more woman – pastor.
Panorāma video segment. (“Rudīte Losāne becomes a LELBĀL pastor”, Panorāma 27.10.2019.)
The recently ordained pastor Rudīte Losāne compares the family and the church to a bird that needs two wings in order to fly. One is the masculine wing, the other the feminine wing. After many years of serving in Latvia as an evangelist, pastoral assistant and prison chaplain, she has been ordained to the office of pastor. And, to put it figuratively, she has come into the shadow of the hawk’s wing.
Her voice resembles that of Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga. If you close your eyes, you won’t even guess which of these remarkable women is speaking to you. It is a quiet but firm voice that makes you listen.
Interview in the magazine “Ir” . (“With two wings”, Laura Dumbere, 27.11.2019.)
Things are not all right in our society when it comes to attitudes toward women, said the president of the Association of Latvian Lutheran Women Theologians, prison chaplain and pastor Rudīte Losāne, addressing those gathered at the “European Person of the Year in Latvia” award ceremony.
R. Losāne’s address at the “European Person of the Year in Latvia” event. (“Pastor Losāne: ‘Things are not all right in our society when it comes to attitudes toward women'”, Jauns.lv/LETA, 20.12.2019.)
We want prosperity like in Europe, but many, oh so many, choose to think as if in a totalitarian society, where opinions are dictated by authorities. And that way of thinking can be seen in both the political and the religious sphere.
Rudīte Losāne’s full address at the “European Person of the Year in Latvia” event can be read in the online version of the magazine IR (“On the way to the dream of Europe”, 02.01.2020.)
This is certainly not the first time in 26 years that the ban on ordaining women pastors in Latvia has been discussed in the media. So perhaps the real topic of conversation could be just how little public reaction it has provoked so far.
This topic will also be addressed by director Kristīne Briede’s forthcoming film, with the working title “The Woman and God”.
In 2010, when I agreed to lead the Association of Latvian Lutheran Women Theologians, I was interviewed about the ordination of women. Afterwards I read this interview online and – oh God! – beneath it were 150 comments where I was being reviled!
Now that is no longer the case; there is also a great deal of appreciation. One has to be patient.
Interview. (“Rudīte Losāne: There is a great deal of human injustice in the Christian church”, Santa/Ieva, 08.01.2020.)
Photo on the right: Santa/Ieva magazine, screenshot from the Facebook page
The LLSTA editorial team