News Desk
JERUSALEM: A Palestinian woman Sally Azar, was ordained as the first female pastor in Jerusalem at a ceremony at the Lutheran church in the heart of the Old City.
Azar who will head the English-speaking congregation at the Church of the Redeemer was ordained before a packed crowd inside the church.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church has around 3,000 adherents in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Jordan.
Five women ordained in Middle East so far
Following her ordination, Azar has become one of the five ordained women in the Middle East, with one already in Syria and three in Lebanon, as per the Middle East Council of Churches.
Christians are a minority population in the Palestinian Territories, Israel and Jordan with around 47,000 Christians residing in The West Bank and Gaza Strip as of 2017. Most Palestinian Christians belong to denominations such as the Greek Orthodox and Latin Catholic Churches that do not allow female clergy. However, the ordination of women has increased in a number of Protestant Churches in the past few decades. There are Protestant congregations in the area with women ministers which have small local congregations and run schools and hospitals in the Holy Land.
