MOSCOW (RNS/ENI) The election of a woman as head of Germany’s Protestant churches threatens ties with the Russian Orthodox Church, a high-ranking official of the Russian church has warned.
Archbishop Hilarion, who oversees external relations for the Russian Orthodox Church, said ties with the Evangelical Church of Germany are threatened by the recent election of Bishop Margot Kassmann, a Lutheran, as chairwoman of the German church.
Hilarion said on Nov. 11 that the 50th anniversary of dialogue between the churches could also be the end of relations.
“I think that the 50th anniversary of this dialogue will become simultaneously the end of this dialogue, because I don’t see the possibility of it continuing now in those forms in which it existed,”
Hilarion said. “And one of the reasons for this is that a woman has become the head of this church.”
“We don’t recognize the ordination of women; we don’t recognize female bishops, but we were ready not to close our eyes to this, but to continue dialogue, even though this wave of ordination of women existed in the Lutheran Church in recent years,” he said.
“But when a woman becomes the head of a church, this results in even simple questions of protocol,” said Hilarion. “How will the Patriarch address her and meet with her? Will he congratulate her on holidays?
Will he address her as bishop, or how?”
In a reply sent to Russian Patriarch Kirill I, Kassman and Bishop Martin Schindehutte, who heads the German church’s foreign relations department, expressed “surprise and incomprehension” over “inappropriate” statements by leaders of the Russian church.
Kassmann and Schindehutte said different views about the ministry of women in churches had previously been “no barrier to fruitful inter-church relations on a bilateral and multilateral level.”
By Sophia Kishkovsky
Copyright 2009 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.
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posted November 16, 2009 at 6:23 pm
They might react by waking up and joining the 20′th. if not the 21′st century.
posted November 16, 2009 at 7:25 pm
So let’s see, the Russian Orthodox church doesn’t recognize women as church leaders, so let’s end 50 years of conversation because of the German decision. Childish. The Orthodox church will now take it’s ball and go home.
posted November 17, 2009 at 1:08 am
I just have two words to describe the Russian Orthodox church’s problem with a German female Lutheran Bishop—-sad and stupid.
posted November 17, 2009 at 1:10 am
To be clear, the Russian Orthodox church is not the Orthodox Church. The Russian Orthodox are one of several different churches whose communion makes up the Orthodox Church. The leaders of Russian Orthodoxy do not speak for anyone else but the Russians (and not even all the Russians–several churches in the Russian tradition are under other jurisdictions). A temporary withdrawal of one Orthodox jurisdiction from an ecumenical dialogue doesn’t necessarily have any bearing on other jurisdictions.
posted November 17, 2009 at 8:06 am
Thanks Nate. Glad to hear they don’t represent all y’all.
posted November 17, 2009 at 10:36 am
I think there is some inadequate information in the article. My guess is that the German denomination is the EKU, Evangelishe Kirche de Union. They are the partner denomination to our United Church of Christ (surprised? You shouldn’t be). Although I have not checked the website, my guess is the new president is a Protestant, though not necessarily a Lutheran per se. She may well be a pastor in the EKU. That the Russian Orthodox Patriarch won;t consider her a peer or colleague is no surprise. He has a similar approach to female clergy as Ben 16 and others. I am not so sure she will miss his beaming countenance at any of the clergy gatherings. There will plenty of other folks to work with. They enjoy a very fruitful and beneficial ecumenical relationship in Germany. The only one to lose out will be the Patriarch.
posted November 17, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Yes, Thanks, NateW for the info on the Orthodox churches and their different groups. And some folks think that there is only ONE church and everyone else is wrong.
posted November 17, 2009 at 1:53 pm
A similar scenario played out on my elementary school playground the winter of ’69: Boys built snow fort. Girls attempted to play in snow fort with boys. Boys said, “We don’t want to play this stupid game anyway,” and went off to sulk in corner of playground.
posted November 18, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Though the Russian Orthodox Church is but one jurisdiction in the ONE Holy Orthodox Church, I do not think that any other jurisdiction, whether Antiochian, Greek, Serbian, Bulgarian, Romanian, etc. will ever support ordination of women to the priesthood let alone to the episcopacy. They may decide to continue ecumenical dialogue with the EDK and may even work with them in certain charitable missions, though when it comes to matters of doctrine, they will all repudiate the innovations of the confessions of western Christianity.
posted November 19, 2009 at 5:03 pm
I hope I never really understand why there is so much hatred toward women in Christianity.
posted November 19, 2009 at 11:46 pm
liz only a certain type of person would make such a blanket statement about a group of folk they could not possibly know all of them or all about them all. Do you know what type of person who would do that?