May 31, 2011
Constance Parvey, pioneer, ELCA pastor, ecumenical leader, dies
Parvey, 80, was also one of the first women admitted to the Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge. She authored a well-known 1983 report on the ordination of women, "The Community of Women and Men in the Church: The Sheffield Report," for the World Council of Churches.
A service of thanksgiving for Parvey's life is planned for June 28 at University Lutheran Church, Cambridge.
The Rev. Jessica R. Crist, bishop of the ELCA Montana Synod, Great Falls, said Parvey was a mentor, colleague and friend. "Connie Parvey was an extraordinary woman whose life touched the lives of many. For many people she was the first ordained woman they had ever seen or heard. She set a gold standard for those who followed," Crist said.
Crist herself attended Harvard Divinity School beginning in 1975, while Parvey was at University Lutheran Church and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Crist spent two years working with her in the ecumenical campus ministry and followed Parvey into the ordained ministry.
"Connie was a dedicated Lutheran theologian with a heart for ecumenism. Throughout her life she refused to be put into a box," she said.
Parvey was one of the few role models for female seminarians in the 1970s, said her bishop, the Rev. Margaret G. Payne of the ELCA New England Synod, Worcester, Mass. "I was one of them, and when other people were telling me that women couldn't be pastors, Connie assured me personally, and in no uncertain terms, that they were wrong," she said.
Parvey's love for the church, courage and passion for embodying the gospel continued through her life, she added.
The Rev. Joanne E. Engquist, pastor of University Lutheran Church, had known Parvey since 1989. Parvey should also be remembered for her work with college students, she said.
"Connie's legacy is at least as important in campus ministry as it was with the wider ministry of the church," Engquist said. "Her commitment to young adults and the bringing together of academic rigor and deep passionate search for faith and trust in God really became for me more central."
Parvey was born in Aberdeen, S.D. She earned a bachelor's degree in sociology and psychology from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, and a Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1963 from Harvard Divinity School. The University of the Redlands (Calif.) awarded her an honorary doctorate in 1977.
Parvey worked in many roles after Harvard Divinity School. She was on the Lutheran campus ministry staff at the University of Wisconsin, Madison; executive producer of a series of television programs on urban life in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., editor of the Harvard Divinity Bulletin; consultant; researcher and writer on ethical and moral issues; and a research associate with the Harvard Divinity School.
Parvey was ordained in 1972 by the Lutheran Church in America, an ELCA predecessor church body. She served five years as associate pastor at University Lutheran Church and Lutheran chaplain at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1978 she began work with the World Council of Churches, Geneva, Switzerland.
Parvey was professor of religion at Bryn Mawr (Pa.) College and pastor of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Jericho, Vt. She returned as chaplain for the Lutheran-Episcopal ministry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1996 until she retired in 2001.
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GJ - WELS FICKLE magazine has an all-woman staff. The Wisconsin sect is now organizing women's ministry conferences, with the blessing of SP Schroeder. WELS has several women pastors, not ordained yet, because "WELS isn't ready for it yet," as Brug says.
Yale Divinity had a thick, boring issue of their alumni magazine out today. The entire issue was devoted to women's ministry and loaded with pretentious articles by women about themselves. To be fair, two eunuchs opened and closed the issue with their brief manly comments, like parentheses.
