Almost every second minister is female in Greater Helsinki Lutheran congregations

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The 19 years of the ordination of women have equalized the gender distribution of clergy in the Greater Helsinki area. Almost every second minister is female in the Evangelical-Lutheran congregations of Helsinki, Espoo, and Vantaa. In fact, one-third of the parishes have a majority of female clergy.
      Nevertheless, only few female parish pastors have been promoted to become vicars.
     
In the Greater Helsinki area's 45 congregations, the number of female vicars is four, while Marjatta Laitinen of the Espoo cathedral congregation is the only female vicar leading a large parish.
      "In the course of the past three years, some 16 per cent of all applicants for vicar positions have been women", reports Kirsi Puoliväli from the cathedral chapter of the Helsinki Diocese.
      The proportion of female employees in the congregations of the Greater Helsinki area is around 70 per cent. At the beginning of the year, only the cemetery workers in the parishes of Helsinki, Espoo, and Vantaa had a majority of men.
     
Opposition to the ordination of women is not a common phenomenon in the parishes of the Greater Helsinki area. In Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa, and Kauniainen, no cases have emerged in which a conservative minister refuses to officiate at services with female colleagues, as happened in Vammala last month.
      The case in which a religiously conservative male assistant vicar at the parish of Vammala in Western Finland refused to work at the altar with a woman pastor is now being investigated at the Archdiocese of Turku.
     
The first women were ordained as clergy in the Finnish Evangelical-Lutheran Church already in 1988, and yet a small minority of male clergy still oppose the ordination of women.
      Currently, the female students of theology outnumber men in the faculties of theology at Finnish universities. Furthermore, the majority of young clergy - born in the 1970s or later - are women.
      According to the forecasts issued by the Union of Finnish Clergy, the gender distribution of clergy is likely to show a female majority in the entire country by 2015.
      Currently, the gender distribution in the Finnish dioceses varies between Espoo's 49.8 per cent of men vs. 50.2 per cent of women, and Oulu's 82.3 per cent of men vs. 17.7 per cent of women.
     
The promotion of female ministers to vicars is a slow process, as there are too few vacant tenures for vicars available and because many clergywomen seek other kind of employment which does not secure them success in the election of vicars.
      On the whole, clergywomen are not eager to apply for posts as vicars. The currently vacant post of a vicar in Vantaa's district of Rekola was sought by two men, and one of them will be appointed.
     
A large number of tenures will open in the Greater Helsinki area in the near future, as many vicars will also retire along with other baby boomers. This year alone, a total of 13 vicars in Helsinki will turn 60 years or more.
      A parish reform is under way in Helsinki, which will cut the number of parishes and vicars somewhat from the present 30. Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland http://www.evl.fi/english/


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Showdown coming over attitudes toward women pastors (27.3.2007)
  Bishops´ Conference: Male clergy must work with women colleagues (14.9.2006)

Links:
  Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland

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