Austria's Lutheran church could elect its first female presiding bishop, following the nomination of four women candidates for a forthcoming leadership election."The list isn't finalised yet, but there are certain to be several female names," said Thomas Dasek, spokesperson for Austria's Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession. "It's too soon to say whether our church will show the way to others in this area. But it's a sign already that women really have the same rights as men here."
A successor to Bishop Herwig Sturm, who has led the church since 1995, is scheduled to be elected on 1 June. Dasek said women already played leading roles in the Austrian church, noting that the election had generated substantial interest in the country, three-quarters of whose 8.1 million inhabitants are traditionally Roman Catholics.
"The very idea of having men and women competing for the office of bishop has already caused surprise among Catholics here, who don't elect their bishops," noted Dasek.
The Lutheran church has seven dioceses, each of which can propose three candidates for presiding bishop. Ten people have already been nominated.
The church's current leader, Bishop Sturm, welcomed the presence of women candidates and said only five men had stood in the last election 12 years ago.
"Although some people may say a female bishop would he hard to accept in the ecumenical forum, Catholic and Orthodox leaders accept our way of being a church, while many of their clergy already have a positive attitude to women pastors here," Sturm told Ecumenical News International.
The 354 000-member Austrian Lutheran church has a joint general synod with the Evangelical Church of the Helvetic Confession, which belongs to the Reformed tradition.
Lutheran churches that have women bishops include those in Canada, Denmark, Germany, India, Nicaragua, Norway, Sweden, and the United States.
The first woman to become a Lutheran bishop was Maria Jepsen from Germany in 1992.
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