wfn.org | Finland: Oulu bishop-elect says he will ordain women

[franki@elca.org]

The question of 'separate ordinations' concerns entire church level

By Kati Harviainen

OULU, Finland/GENEVA, 11 December 2000 (LWI) - Rev. Dr. Samuel Salmi, the
new bishop of Oulu Diocese in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland
(ELCF) has stated that he will ordain women as pastors and will not arrange
the so called separate ordinations.

According to Salmi who was elected as Oulu diocese bishop on November 27,
the question of separate ordinations must be dealt with on the level of the
whole church, not just in one diocese. Women's ordination was officially
accepted in the ELCF in 1988. The Lutheran church, to which 85 percent of
Finns belong, has eight dioceses with a total membership of 4.4 million
people.

The election of a new bishop for Oulu in the northwest aroused special
interest in Finland because the retiring bishop Olavi RimpilÓinen refused to
ordain women. Ordination of female pastors from Oulu was done in other
dioceses. Separate ordinations have been conducted for men who were opposed
to having women as pastors and therefore refused to be ordained at the same
ceremony with women. During the past twelve years men who were opposed to
having women as pastors asked for their own ordination in Oulu diocese.

In the election, Salmi, 49, currently vicar of the Katariina parish in
Turku, received 416 votes while the second candidate Rev. Dr. Keijo NissilÓ,
general secretary of Oulu diocese got 328 of the total 746 votes cast. The
installation of the new bishop, the 12th in the diocese, will take place at
the Oulu Cathedral on 6 January 2001. Out-going bishop RimpilÓinen will
retire at the end of this year.

Salmi has been involved in several ecumenical activities in Finland and
abroad. He studied in Geneva, Switzerland in 1976 and 1986. He has
participated as an ELCF delegate in the Faith and Order meetings in Annecy,
France in 1987 and in Turku in 1988. The subject of his doctoral thesis was
ecumenics.

The bishop-elect worked as a priest in Oulu in the seventies and eighties.
He is married to Hannele Salmi and they have two children.

(The LWF is a global communion of 131 member churches in 72 countries
representing over 59 million of the world's 63 million Lutherans. Its
highest decision making body is the Assembly, normally held every six years.
Between Assemblies, the LWF is governed by a 49-member Council which meets
annually, and its Executive Committee. The LWF acts on behalf of its member
churches in areas of common interest such as ecumenical relations, theology,
humanitarian assistance, human rights, communication, and the various
aspects of mission and development work. Its secretariat is located in
Geneva, Switzerland.)

[Lutheran World Information (LWI) is the information service of the Lutheran
World Federation (LWF). Unless specifically noted, material presented does
not represent positions or opinions of the LWF or of its various units.
Where the dateline of an article contains the notation (LWI), the material
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