A woman pastor for Poland's Reformed

Christian Century, Oct 4, 2003

The Reformed Evangelical Church has become the first in Poland's Protestant minority to appoint a female pastor--150 years after the first Reformed woman was ordained in the U.S. The ordination of Wiera Jelinek, 43, is widely expected to clear the way for other women pastors.

"I know reactions will be mixed, since there are positive and negative voices everywhere, but I hope women especially will approve," said Jelinek, who will assist her pastor-husband, Miroslaw Jelinek, at a 500-member Reformed parish in Zelow, a city south of Warsaw. The congregation is affiliated with the World Alliance of Reformed Churches.

The appointment, made possible by a change in the Polish denomination's rules in 1991, was approved by its governing body in 2001. The September 14 ordination coincided w4th the 150th anniversary of the ordination of the world's first woman Reformed pastor, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, at a Congregational church in South Butler, New York.

Interviewed by the Polish church's monthly publication, Jednota, Jelinek said her priorities would include encouraging church members to "take greater responsibility" for the 4,000-member Reformed community in Zelow, where she runs a church museum and teaches catechism.

"Every woman wishing to become a pastor has met and will meet some negative reactions, but so do men," said Jelinek, who graduated from Warsaw's ecumenical Christian Theology Academy. "I'm concerned about the future of other women following in my footsteps," said Jelinek. "But perhaps what's happening with me now will mean that, in a few years, no one pays attention to the sex of God's servants."

The ordination of women has been resisted by many Protestant churches in Poland. Opponents claimed the move could stir up old church divisions and set back relations with the country's large Catholic Church.

An official from the Polish Catholic bishops' Council for Ecumenism, Celestyn Napiorkowski, predicted that Jelinek's ordination would "weaken the ecumenical climate," but said the Reformed Church's "right to its own identity" should be respected "with calm, as well as with Catholic sadness."

Among church leaders attending Jelinek's ordination service was Bishop Pavel Smetana, head of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren, which this year celebrates the 50th anniversary of the ordination of its first woman pastor.

At least 15 women deacons have full teaching rights in the 90,000-member Evangelical (Lutheran) Church of the Augsburg Confession in Poland, the country's largest Protestant denomination, which appointed a commission to study women's ordination in 1999.--ENI