Dutch Lutheran Women on the Pulpit: The History of Women’s Ordained Ministry in the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in the Netherlands

Abstract

In the course of the Twentieth century, the roles for women in Protestant churches in Europe expanded to include the possibility of participating in the church office of minister. For the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the year 2022 marked the centenary of women in the ordained ministry. On June 12, 1922, the Lutheran synod decided that, according to the existing regulations, women could also be admitted as candidates for the ministry. In 1929 Jantine Auguste Haumersen (1881–1967) became the first female Lutheran minister in the Netherlands and worldwide. This made the Lutheran church, after the Mennonites and the Remonstrants, the third denomination in the Netherlands where women could hold the office of minister.

Utilizing a broad cultural analysis and based on recent extensive archival research this article describes the turning points in the development of women’s ordained ministry in the Lutheran Church in the Netherlands.