Sally Azar, first ordained Palestinian female pastor in the Holy Land

Her hand goes to her neck to readjust her Roman collar. “I didn’t expect to wear it every day, but I realized it was important for people to see it. I still have to adapt,” she acknowledges with a smile.

At 26, Sally Azar has just been ordained a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Holy Land and Jordan: a first. On January 22 in Jerusalem, the ceremony, after his eight years of theological studies between Lebanon and Germany, was presided over by… his father, Bishop Sani Ibrahim Azar.

This first clashes on this land where Christianity is lived in the respect of traditions that are sometimes thousand years old, and in an Arab society where the place of women is not as questioned as in Western countries.

In the footsteps of his father

Born and raised in Jerusalem, Sally Azar spent much of her childhood behind the white stones of the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in the Old City. His father served there for thirty years as a pastor. “She loved helping her father. Everyone said she would become a pastor,” laughs Georgette, one of her childhood friends. “It was a way of spending time with my father. He inspired me enormously. Theology ended up becoming obvious,” smiles Sally Azar modestly.

Churches emerging from the Reformation are historically more open to promoting women. In the West, they have had access to pastoral and episcopal offices since the 20th century. The Lutheran Church in the Holy Land accepted women’s ordinations at a synod seventeen years ago. “I never thought I was the first,” says Sally Azar. Now five women have been ordained in the Middle East since the first in 2017: three in Lebanon, one in Syria and now one in the Holy Land.

Resistors

But the case of Sally Azar is neither understood nor accepted by all. During his ordination, the chairs reserved for representatives of other Christian churches remained empty. Only the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem was represented. “The Eastern Churches are totally opposed to it”, blows the representative in question, Father Nikodemus Schnabel, German Benedictine and patriarchal vicar.

Same resistance from the side of the faithful. “We know that men and women are equal, but that’s Arab culture here. A period of adaptation will be necessary”, slips Daoud Nassar, one of the 2,500 members of the Lutheran community in the Holy Land.

Sally Azar, whose ministry will be divided between the English-speaking Lutheran community of Jerusalem, and that, Arabic-speaking of Beit Sahour (Palestinian Territories), knows that the frontal criticisms will arrive. Mathild Sabbagh, pastor in Syria and former classmate, warned her, especially about the violence of social networks. “That’s exactly why I chose to come back to the Holy Land,” explains the new pastor, determined. I want to pave the way for gender equity in the Church and encourage young women to pursue theological studies. »

Present in Jerusalem for ordination, Reverend Susan Johnson paved the way sixteen years ago by becoming the first woman to lead the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. “The important thing is that she’s Sally,” she advises. And knowing his temper, I don’t worry. »

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