Jānis Vanags (born 25 May 1958,

Liepāja Liepāja () (formerly: Libau) is a Administrative divisions of Latvia, state city in western Latvia, located on the Baltic Sea. It is the largest city in the Courland region and the third-largest in the country after Riga and Daugavpils. It is an ...

) is a Latvian Lutheran Archbishop. Since 1993 he has been the Archbishop of Riga in the

Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia (, or LELB) is a Lutheranism, Lutheran Protestant church in Latvia. Latvia's Lutheran heritage dates back to the Protestant Reformation, Reformation. Both the Nazi and communist regimes persecuted the c ...

. Vanags is seen as conservative on theological or moral issues and opposes

women's ordination The ordination of women to ministerial or priestly office is an increasingly common practice among some contemporary major religious groups. It remains a controversial issue in certain religious groups in which ordination was traditionally res ...

. He also opposes abortion and euthanasia, and encourages homosexual people to be

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. He presided over the agreement of fellowship with the

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of the

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Background and education

Vanags studied at Liepaja 5th High School (1965–1976), the Latvian State University Chemistry Department (1976–1982), and the Lutheran Theological Seminar (1984–1989). He worked as a chemistry teacher in Riga Vilis Lacis 31st High School (1982–1985).

Religious career

Vanags was ordained as a pastor in 1985. He was appointed by the Synod to lead the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia in 1993, following the death of Kārlis Gailītis, the previous archbishop, in a car crash. He was consecrated to the episcopate by the Lutheran Bishop of Stockholm

Henrik Svenungsson Lars Henrik Sigfrid Svenungsson (30 May 1933 - 6 December 2017) was a Swedish prelate of the Church of Sweden who was Bishop of Stockholm between 1988 and 1998 and later chaplain of the Royal Household from 1997 till 2007. Biography Svenungsson w ...

on 29 August 1993. Lutheranism is the leading faith in Latvia, with a quarter of the country's 2.4 million population counted by the church as active members. Vanags has returned to the historic practice of the Lutheran Church by refusing to ordain women since his appointment in 1993. The ordination of women was formally banned by the Synod in 2016.

Homosexuality controversy

Archbishop Vanags has been criticised for his perceived homophobia, particularly when he deposed (defrocked) 36-year-old pastor Maris Sants from Holy Orders. Sants was known for ministering to AIDS patients, but Archbishop Vanags deposed the priest “due to his promotion of a tolerant attitude to homosexuality”. Through a statement by Mara Grigola, secretary to Vanags, he accused Sants of expressing in public "information that is against Lutheran doctrine". He also stated, "Persons who accept homosexual orientation as normal cannot work in the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church". Sants told AFP that his dismissal came without warning, following an interview he gave with

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in which he discussed his own homosexuality. "It's the practice in our church to dismiss people and not consult them. The church is not only conservative, but going backwards" said Sants, who added that he had been criticised by church officials for ministering to AIDS sufferers. Vanags contributed an essay to the 2002 anti-homosexuality book ''Homoseksuālisms - cilvēces negods un posts'', edited by Aivars Garda, the founder of the ultranationalist Latvian National Front. "Now homosexuals are recognized as a minority so in principle after them pedophiles may also be recognized as a minority", Vanags was quoted as saying in a January 2002 article in the daily '' Rīgas Balss''. He is also quoted as saying, "What we could actually say to our brothers and sisters who are in this homosexual orientation, is that they're welcome to receive all that the Gospel means for the church, but we cannot accept their homosexual relationships as a normal alternative to marriage".

References

External links

Biography at the Lutheran Church websiteLatvia Revived: interview in ''Touchstone'', May 2001Article in "Touchstone", December 2010
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vanags, Janis 1958 births Living people People from Liepāja Latvian Lutheran clergy Latvian Lutheran bishops Lutheran archbishops of Riga 20th-century Lutheran archbishops 21st-century Lutheran archbishops Recipients of the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, 3rd Class