Social-Political Context of the First Ordinations of Women in the Church of Sweden

Katarzyna Tempczyk

Abstract

Because of the strict connection between the Lutheran Church and the State in Sweden, the introduction of the ordination of women in the Church has a very specific political and social context. Since the clergy of the Church were appointed and partly paid by the state which served as a manager of church funds, actually the discussion about the possibility was started outside of the Church and concerned firstly the State legislation. In 1919 the Minister of Justice appointed a committee to enquire into the competence of women for government appointments and recommended a legal change. When in 1925 legislation allowed women to hold state offices, an exception was made concerning the office in church. After many discussions, in 1958 the legal barriers were removed, but still ordination, which is the privilege of the Bishop was a condition for holding the office in the church. Although the formal discussion was about the question of state office, nevertheless the actual debate was on whether or not to admit women to the priesthood. The specific legal context caused that the theological argumentation was not actually taken into consideration. After the legal change the decision whether the women will be ordained to the ministry in the Church depended on the particular bishop and not all of them decided to introduce the new practice. The first ordinations of women took place in 1960, however, by 1970 not one women had been ordained in 5 out of the 13 dioceses.