Nine women were ordained as priests at a ceremony at the Holy Trinity Church in Warsaw this Saturday. All were deacons of the Evangelical-Augsburg Church, the first and currently largest protestant church in Poland.
The revolutionary decision to allow women as well as men to be ordained into priesthood was taken during the Synod at the Lutheran Centre in Warsaw last October. The new regulations came into force with January 1, 2022.
Saturday's ordination ceremony was led by Jerzy Samiec, Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Poland.
The nine women, who have been deacons at various congregations nationwide, are Karina Chwastek-Kamieniorz, Małgorzata Gaś, Beata Janota, Katarzyna Kowalska, Wiktoria Matloch, Halina Radacz, Katarzyna Rudkowska, Izabela Sikora and Marta Zachraj-Mikołajczyk.
There are over 200 Lutheran churches in predominantly Roman-Catholic Poland (two in Warsaw) and around 62 thousand faithful.
Source: PAP/deon.pl