Élisabeth Parmentier

This article examines the theological training and pastoral ministry of Élisabeth Behr-Sigel during her youth within the Protestant Churches of Alsace-Lorraine, before her conversion to Orthodoxy. Drawing on a documented historical study, Élisabeth Parmentier reconstructs the circumstances that led the young Élisabeth Sigel to exercise a ministry within a Reformed parish rather than a Lutheran one, despite her formal membership in the latter confession. The article also traces the successive stages through which the Alsatian Protestant Churches gradually opened pastoral ministry to women. It highlights a significant paradox: Behr-Sigel exercised a publicly recognized ministerial role without having been ordained, and this experience came after her entry into Orthodoxy. The contribution of this study lies in the light it sheds on the Protestant roots of a major figure in contemporary Orthodox theology.

This article focuses on the Catholic-Orthodox agreement document adopted in Munich in 1982 within the framework of the official theological dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches. Élisabeth Parmentier, a Protestant theologian, offers an analytical and appreciative reading of it, examining the doctrinal foundations on which this text rests. She highlights the Trinitarian, relational and pneumatological conception of the Church that structures the agreement, and shows how it constitutes a significant consensus on fundamental ecclesiological elements common to both traditions. The theological contribution of the article lies in the identification of the specific contribution of Orthodox theology to the ecumenical movement: by broadening ecclesiological reflection beyond purely institutional questions, it offers a doctrinal framework capable of grounding a wider rapprochement between Christian Churches.