The Lutheran Church of Finland is set to take a much tougher stance against male priests who refuse to work with female priests. This move will be particularly significant in Oulu where the church is generally seen as very conservative and around half of male priests are opposed to or will not work with their female colleagues, according to Helsingin Sanomat.    

In a press release sent to the Finnish news agency, the Archbishop of Finland, Most Rev. Dr. Jukka Paarma, said that the Finnish church would no longer tolerate colleagues who refused to conduct services with female priests. Oulu, like most Finnish cities, is divided into a number of ‘congregations,’ in which there are many churches. Each Finnish ‘congregation’ has multiple priests and a ‘Kirkkoherra’ (head priest), meaning that priests end up working together.
 

Around four percent of priests nationally will not work with women but the percentage is far higher in Oulu. According to the Helsingin Sanomat, thirteen percent of male priests still oppose female ordination. Ten years ago, a third of male priests opposed their ordination. The Finnish Lutheran Church is very influential, with most Finns being confirmed members, and the Archbishop’s announcement has gained considerable national press coverage.   

No to Services with Women Priests

Since the first ordination of women priests in Finland in 1988, male priests who oppose the ordination of women have had the right to refuse to conduct church services with them and, in some cases, to refuse to be ordained with them. This right has been taken up particularly by the Lestadians, a fundamentalist revivalist group within the Finnish Lutheran church. Many Lestadians reject television, pop music, contraception, make-up and ear-rings for women, and have their own separate services. Up to a third of Oulu residents are members of this movement and members tend to have very large families. However, the ordination of women is opposed by some Oulu priests who are not Lestadians, such as evangelicals. Also, some Lestadians, from more liberal branches of the movement, are prepared to work with women priests in Oulu.

The church has suggested that there will be heavier sanctions against priests that will not work with women and has rejected the continuation of the practice whereby work shifts are decided on gender grounds so that conservative male priests can avoid working with women. Many bishops, including the current Bishop of Oulu, have also abolished separate ordinations for those opposed to women priests.

‘Spiritual Violence’

The Bishop of Oulu, Rt. Rev Dr. Samuel Salmi, is in favour of female ordination. However, this was not the case with his predecessor Rt. Rev. Dr. Olavi Rimpiläinen who was bishop from 1980 to 2000. Dr. Rimpiläinen refused to ordain women as priests. According to PhD research at Lapland University by Rev. Dr. Satu Saarinen (herself a Lutheran priest in Oulu), under Dr. Rimpiläinen’s leadership life was very difficult for female priests in Oulu and in the broader Oulu diocese (which stretches from Lapland down to Kokkola). Dr. Saarinen argues - having interviewed many female priests in the Oulu diocese - that due to ‘downright persecution in the workplace’ women priests in Oulu felt that they were ‘unworthy’ and essentially second-class priests. This treatment, according to Dr. Saarinen, ‘cracked their harmonious sense of life’ and was emotionally difficult because being a priest was their ‘calling.’ She argued that female priests were ‘bullied’ and subjected to what she termed ‘psychological and spiritual violence’ which only began to lessen when a more liberal bishop was elected.      

Even under the new bishop, the issue of women priests remains extremely controversial in the Oulu Lutheran church. According to a number of priests, who wish to remain anonymous, the current system means that some conservative male priests end up doing ‘far less work’ than other priests because they can refuse to work with women priests, who comprise an increasing number of their colleagues. Some female priests felt that male priests, who opposed their ordination, patronised them and did not treat them as equals. Oulu priests that are opposed to the ordination of women include the Kirkkoherra of Oulujoki, one of Oulu’s four congregations. Oulujoki is currently the only Oulu congregation in which there are no women priests. Public opponents also include Rev. Vesa Pöyhtäri, who will not work with women and has publicly explained why in The Kaleva. Mr. Pöyhtäri was a prominent Christian Democrat candidate in the recent General Election.     

Currently, around a third of Finnish Lutheran priests are women and the numbers are rising. However, in conservative Oulu, women priests make-up just seventeen percent of the total. There are also no female Kirkkoherra’s in Oulu. This position, like that of Bishop, is elected by the congregation members. Those opposed to female priests justify their position with a literalist reading of certain passages from the Bible. They argue that the Bible makes clear at various points that men should be in charge of women and women should be subservient to men and that all of Jesus’ disciples were men. Others argue that this is taking the Bible out of its historical context and that there were female priests and leaders in the early church, which only later came to oppose female influence.

Late Ordaining Women

Finland was relatively late ordaining women. The Lutheran Church of Denmark first ordained women in 1948, Sweden’s Lutheran church ordained its first female priest in 1960 and Norway did likewise the following year. Of the main European Protestant churches, only the Church of England ordained women later – in 1994, while the Finnish Lutheran Church in Australia (which serves the significant Finnish community there) still refuses to ordain women priests. Though consecration is permitted, there are no women bishops in Finland which again contrasts with the situation in other Scandinavian countries. In England, the consecration of women bishops is not permitted.    

Various Finnish commentators have claimed that the argument over women priests has meant that many Finns are simply ‘divorcing the church;’ ceasing to pay their church membership tax. President Tarja Halonen, now effectively in charge of the ‘established’ Finnish Lutheran church, divorced the church herself, decades ago, because of its then stance on women priests.

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