Greti Caprez-Roffler

The pastor of Furna on skis (estate of Greti Caprez-Roffler).

Greti Caprez-Roffler (born August 17, 1906 in St. Antönien , Graubünden , † March 19, 1994 in Chur ) was the first pastor to take responsibility for a congregation in Switzerland. When they were elected in 1931, the reformed Furna in Prättigau defied the then applicable law.

life and career

“In the community meetings women should be silent. Because they are not allowed to speak, they should rather submit, as the law also says. "

"As for the case of Mrs. Caprez in Graubünden, nobody will talk about acting in obedience to God, only about obedience to one's own wishes and stubbornness found only in women."

On her 25th birthday (Greti Caprez-Roffler's estate).

The parents of Margreth called Greti Roffler were Josias Roffler (1878-1944) , son of a mountain farmer from Furna, and Elsbeth Luk from neighboring Jenaz , daughter of the registry clerk ( canton bookkeeper ). The father, previously a Reformed pastor in Fideris , taught at the Bündner canton school . From 1912 he was pastor in Igis , to which Landquart belonged, until 1927 at the same time in Zizers , most recently in 1932–1943 in Felsberg . 1929–1932 he was a member of the church council of the reformed regional church .

According to her daughter Margreth Härdi-Caprez, Greti Roffler was "very dependent on her father". After graduating from high school in Chur, she began studying classical philology at the University of Zurich in 1925 , but soon switched to theology . In 1928 she went to Marburg for a semester . In the same year, her father managed to get the Graubünden synod to speak out in favor of making the pastoral office accessible to women - albeit only to unmarried women. The necessary change to the church constitution was postponed by the Evangelical Grand Council, especially since Greti Roffler married the Engadin civil engineer ETH Gian Caprez (1905-1994) and emigrated with him to São Paulo in 1929 against the resistance of parents and in-laws .

The attempt to break out remained half-hearted: Greti Caprez-Roffler returned home after a year to take the state examination in Zurich and to have her first child. Her father made sure that she was the first woman to be admitted to the theological exams in Graubünden. Against the background of disintegrated coffee prices and putsch forming military left her husband in 1931 Brazil . The two now lived temporarily in Pontresina , where their father-in-law owned a construction business. And Greti Caprez-Roffler fought with articles in the Bündner press for the admission of women to the pastoral office.

The shame of being a woman

Reformed church Furna with rectory (estate of Greti Caprez-Roffler).

With the first child in the Räf (estate of Greti Caprez-Roffler).

In 1918, the reformed Graubünden residents introduced women's suffrage in church affairs. In Zurich that same year, Rosa Gutknecht and Elise Pfister were the first theologians to be ordained to Verbi divini ministrae - they were to remain the only ones until 1963. With the exception of the Église évangélique libre of the canton of Vaud , women were only allowed to serve as pastors. If they were able to temporarily take on a pastor's office, they had to give it up when they got married.

Nevertheless, the married Greti Caprez-Roffler was elected pastor on September 13, 1931 by her father's home parish at his suggestion. Previously, Furna, located at an altitude of 1,350 meters, whose slightly more than 200 residents had to wait until 1968 to be connected to the power grid, had unsuccessfully looked for a successor to his pastor who was called to Milan. Greti Caprez-Roffler writes about what followed: “A storm broke out! Not only in the church council, in the synod, in the entire "forest of leaves" of Graubünden and beyond the borders of the canton. "

Although the Evangelical Small Council declared the election to be invalid and the 25-year-old had great self-doubt, she moved to Prättigau with her 9-month-old son and a housekeeper. At the time, her husband was living in Zurich for professional reasons, but was soon able to do most of his work as an engineer in Furna. The community referred to the cantonal constitution, which gave it the right to elect its pastor, and the authorities decided: “If our pastor has no other fault than that he wears a skirt, we keep it.” The piquant thing about it: Greti Caprez -Roffler used to wear ski pants in winter and also made this possible for the girls, while their main opponent, Pastor Jakob Rudolf Truog in Jenaz, forbade them to wear pants .

When the Evangelical Small Council of the stubborn congregation blocked the patronage in 1932, Greti Caprez-Roffler wrote in her diary: “I may have suspected it before, but I have never had to experience with such cruel clarity: that it is a shame to be a woman . ”On top of everything else, the Reformed voters stabbed her in the back in the same year by, together with the men, also denying unmarried members of her gender access to the pastoral office. For a while, Greti Caprez-Roffler kept her position for God's wages, but then moved in 1934 to her husband in Zurich. The previous year he had started a second degree in theology. Although not very enthusiastic about this, his father kept them both afloat during the Great Depression. Furna found a man again as pastor.

Persistent discrimination

The couple with their six children in Kilchberg (estate of Greti Caprez-Roffler).

In 1938 Gian Caprez was elected pastor of Flerden , Urmein and Tschappina am Heinzenberg . Since he did not graduate until later in the year mentioned, his wife replaced him until then. After that, however, she was only allowed to preach in the last two places mentioned. The colloquium Nid dem Wald invited her to its meetings, but without voting rights, as she was not a member of the synod. When a retired pastor moved to the area from another colloquium, he was indignant about their presence and said, “It's good that I came and took the lid off this stinking pot.” During this time of threat from Nazi Germany gave Greti Caprez-Roffler field sermons to soldiers.

In 1941 the Evangelical Minor Council asked the couple whether they wanted to jointly take over the newly created pastoral position at the cantonal institutions (hospitals, prisons) in Chur and Realta . While Gian received the salary of a country pastor, Greti was only paid as his "helper" to the extent that she could afford a housekeeper. She was also only allowed to donate the sacraments "temporarily". Nevertheless, they accepted the offer and bought a house in Chur. But when the housekeeper became a deaconess and the meanwhile five (soon afterwards six) children gave too much work, Greti Caprez-Roffler resigned in 1945, whereupon she was replaced by another woman.

In 1947, her husband successfully applied for one of the two parish positions in Kilchberg near Zurich. There they were troubled by his colleague Eduard Schweingruber , who had written a book about the species of women that was published several times . Greti Caprez-Roffler writes: “He was not against the theologian as such, but against those in his community. (...) He prevented me from preparing the Sunday school teachers myself (...) I would never have thought that it would be so difficult for me - like a burning fire - not to be allowed to preach. ”Therefore, she accepted preaching representation far beyond the Canton of Zurich . In the canton of Thurgau, the government council forbade her to baptize one of her grandchildren.

Finally equal

In 1963, the canton of Zurich introduced church women's suffrage , and in the same year Greti Caprez-Roffler was ordained - 33 years after the state examination - with eleven other graduates from the theological faculty in Zurich's Grossmünster .

In 1965 Graubünden's Protestant electorate admitted women to the pastoral office, as did all Reformed cantonal churches between 1956 and 1968. As a result, Gian Caprez gave up the job in Kilchberg for the sake of his wife four years before retirement. In 1966 the couple took over pastoral care in the Rheinwald , which had long been a parishioner : he in Splügen , Sufers and Medels , she in Nufenen and Hinterrhein . The problem became that pastors live in the respective rectory, but according to the Civil Code , married couples had to have a common place of residence. After the Synod in 1965 had accepted Yvette Mayer (1926–2001) as the first properly elected pastor into its ranks, she did the same with Greti Caprez-Roffler. In addition, the Council of Churches reluctantly allowed her husband and she to take turns in the pulpits every Sunday.

In 1967 their daughter Margreth Härdi-Caprez was ordained in Zofingen . In 1970 Greti Caprez-Roffler could have retired. But since Furna once again couldn't find a pastor, she and her husband took over the position there again for two years. They chose their grandfather's house as their retirement home. In 1982 her eldest Gian, the founder of an engineering company, was the victim of an avalanche accident. In 1983 she received the honorary citizenship of Furna. From that year on, the last Grisons women were finally allowed to have a say in communal matters, as they have been in federal affairs since 1971 and in cantonal ones in 1972. In 1987 the couple moved to a retirement home in Chur. In 1994 she died 24 days apart, first Greti, then Gian.

literature

Chronicle for the month of June. in: Bündnerisches Monatsblatt, magazine for the history of Graubünden, regional and folklore, July 1930, p. 222 ( digitized version ).

Greti Caprez-Roffler: The cause of the theologians in the Swiss cantons. In: Communications from the Association of Protestant Theologians in Germany 1/1931, Issue 3, pp. 9–12.

HZ: Le pastorat féminin et le “Cas Furna”. In: Le Mouvement Féministe (Geneva), January 9, 1932, p. 2 f. ( Digitized version ).

V. v. E .: The pastor of Furna. In: Schweizerische Kirchen-Zeitung (Lucerne), May 12, 1932, p. 155 f. ( Digitized version ).

Pastor J. Roffler † ( published anonymously ). In: Pro Senectute , Swiss magazine for old age care, old age care and old age insurance, 22/1944, issue 4, pp. 110–115 ( digitized version ).

Greti Caprez-Roffler: The pastor, memoirs of the first Grisons theologian. In: Bündner Jahrbuch, New Series, 22/1980, pp. 110–133, 23/1981, pp. 94–112 (22: digitized ; 23: digitized ); also book edition, Bischofberger, Chur 1981.

Margreth Härdi-Caprez: Obituary for the parents. In: Grisons yearbook, magazine for art, culture and history of the Grisons, 37/1995, dead panel ( digitized ), pp 158-162.

Peter Aerne: "In 100 years you won't understand that our time was so reserved." Greti Caprez-Roffler as pastor in Furna 1931–1934 and the way to the women's pastoral office in the Reformed Graubünden Church. In: Bündner Monatsblatt, 2003, issue 5, pp. 411–447 ( digitized version ).

Ursula Jecklin: The women's right to vote in the Protestant Church. In Silvia Hofmann, Regina Wecker (Hrsg.): FrauenRecht, contributions to women's and gender history in Graubünden in the 19th and 20th centuries. Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich 2003, pp. 157–172.

Kurt Wanner: Caprez-Roffler, Greti. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .

Peter Aerne: "The opposing arguments are only emotional and have grown out of tradition." The long march of women into the parish office. In: Argovia, annual journal of the Historical Society of the Canton of Aargau, 116/2004, pp. 35–74 ( digitized version ).

Jolanda Nydegger: "And it was also to blame that we then had ski pants." In: Swiss Journal for History, 57/2007, Issue 4, pp. 457–464 ( digitized version ).

Christina Caprez: The first female pastor in Grisons. Greti Caprez-Roffler, campaigner for equality. In: Mitteilungen, 16 (2016), Kulturforschung Graubünden , ( digitized version ), pp. 28–31.

The same: the pastor as a harbinger of a new era? Greti Caprez-Roffler in the Rheinwald 1966–1970. In: Swiss Journal for Religious and Cultural History, 111/2017, pp. 195–213 ( digitized version ).

Cornelia Schlarb: Women's ordination worldwide - on equality for women in the ministry. In: Deutsches Pfarrerblatt , issue 2/2017, pp. 64–69 ( digitized version ).

Christina Caprez: The illegal pastor. The life of Greti Caprez-Roffler (1906–1994) . Zurich 2019, ISBN 978-3-85791-887-2 .

Radio broadcasts

Her children's statements about the strong and difficult sides of the feminist theologian can be heard in a radio feature by her granddaughter Christina Caprez, who won the Audience Award at the Sonohr Audio Art Festival in 2018:

Greti Caprez-Roffler, the first pastor. Radio SRF 2 Kultur , Passage, November 20, 2015, 60 minutes ( digitized ).

More programs by Christina Caprez:

References and comments

↑ 1st Letter of Paul to the Corinthians 14:34, quoted from the Zurich Bible ( digital version ).
^ Editor Wilhelm Kolfhaus (1870–1954) in: Reformierte Kirchenzeitung 82/1932, p. 197 f., Quoted in Greti Caprez-Roffler: Die Pfarrerin, memoirs of the first Graubünden theologian, first episode. In: Bündner Jahrbuch, New Series, 22/1980, pp. 110-133, here: p. 123 ( digital copy ). The quote comes from the “Afterword” by Kolfhaus to a letter from Gertrud Herrmann, who campaigned for Greti Caprez-Roffler. It caused Karl Barth to protect them as well.
↑ See Pastor J. Roffler † ( published anonymously ). In: Pro Senectute , Swiss magazine for old age care, old age care and old age insurance 22/1944, issue 4, pp. 110–115 ( digital copy ).
↑ Christina Caprez: Greti Caprez-Roffler, the first pastor. Radio SRF 2 Kultur , Passage, November 20, 2015, 60 minutes ( digitized ).
↑ Legislature of the reformed regional church, consisted of the reformed members of the Grand Council (cantonal parliament).
↑ Her husband was in charge of the wood section of the materials testing institute.
^ Chronicle for the month of June. in: Bündnerisches Monatsblatt, magazine for the history of Graubünden, regional and folklore, July 1930, p. 222 ( digitized version ).
↑ Servants of the Divine Word.
↑ In this function they earned significantly less than their male colleagues and had to be content with the tasks assigned to them by the congregations. However, in many places they had almost the same powers as the pastors.
↑ Greti Caprez-Roffler: The Pastor, Memoirs of the First Grisons Theologian, Volume I. In: Bündner Jahrbuch, New Series, 22/1980, pp. 110-133, here: p. 117 ( digitized version ).
^ Consists of the reformed members of the Small Council (cantonal government). Its powers were passed on to the Council of Churches in 1978.
^ Peter Metz: History of the Canton of Graubünden. Volume 3, Calven, Chur 1993, ISBN 3-905261-03-0 , p. 201 f.
↑ Jolanda Nydegger: "And it was also to blame that we then had ski pants." In: Swiss Journal for History, 57/2007, Issue 4, pp. 457–464 ( digitized version ).
↑ Christina Caprez: The first Grisons pastor. Greti Caprez-Roffler, campaigner for equality. In: Mitteilungen 16 (2016), Kulturforschung Graubünden ( digitized version ), pp. 28–31, here: p. 28; the same: Greti Caprez-Roffler, the first pastor. Radio SRF 2 Kultur , Passage, November 20, 2015, 60 minutes ( digitized ).
↑ In Furna, however, there were only 6 no to 112 yes.
↑ Greti Caprez-Roffler: The pastor, memoirs of the first Grisons theologian, II. Episode and conclusion. In: Bündner Jahrbuch, New Series, 23/1981, pp. 94–112, here: p. 94 ( digitized version ).
↑ Eduard Schweingruber : Frauenart. A psychological study from practical life for practical life. Gotthelf-Verlag, Zurich 1940.
↑ Greti Caprez-Roffler: The pastor, memoirs of the first Grisons theologian, II. Episode and conclusion. In: Bündner Jahrbuch, New Series, 23/1981, pp. 94–112, here: pp. 103 f. ( Digitized version ).
↑ In Zurich this was the first ordination for women after Rosa Gutknecht and Elise Pfister .
↑ Cf. Christina Caprez: The pastor as a harbinger of a new era? Greti Caprez-Roffler in the Rheinwald 1966–1970. In: Swiss Journal for Religious and Cultural History, 111/2017, pp. 195–213 ( digitized version ).

personal data
SURNAME	Caprez-Roffler, Greti
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Caprez-Roffler, Margarethe
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	first female pastor to take responsibility for a congregation in Switzerland
DATE OF BIRTH	17th August 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH	St. Antönien
DATE OF DEATH	March 19, 1994
Place of death	Chur

[1] 1st Letter of Paul to the Corinthians 14:34, quoted from the Zurich Bible ( digital version ).

[2] Editor Wilhelm Kolfhaus (1870–1954) in: Reformierte Kirchenzeitung 82/1932, p. 197 f., Quoted in Greti Caprez-Roffler: Die Pfarrerin, memoirs of the first Graubünden theologian, first episode. In: Bündner Jahrbuch, New Series, 22/1980, pp. 110-133, here: p. 123 ( digital copy ). The quote comes from the “Afterword” by Kolfhaus to a letter from Gertrud Herrmann, who campaigned for Greti Caprez-Roffler. It caused Karl Barth to protect them as well.

[3] See Pastor J. Roffler † ( published anonymously ). In: Pro Senectute , Swiss magazine for old age care, old age care and old age insurance 22/1944, issue 4, pp. 110–115 ( digital copy ).

[4] Christina Caprez: Greti Caprez-Roffler, the first pastor. Radio SRF 2 Kultur , Passage, November 20, 2015, 60 minutes ( digitized ).

[5] Legislature of the reformed regional church, consisted of the reformed members of the Grand Council (cantonal parliament).

[6] Her husband was in charge of the wood section of the materials testing institute.

[7] Chronicle for the month of June. in: Bündnerisches Monatsblatt, magazine for the history of Graubünden, regional and folklore, July 1930, p. 222 ( digitized version ).

[8] Servants of the Divine Word.

[9] In this function they earned significantly less than their male colleagues and had to be content with the tasks assigned to them by the congregations. However, in many places they had almost the same powers as the pastors.

[10] Greti Caprez-Roffler: The Pastor, Memoirs of the First Grisons Theologian, Volume I. In: Bündner Jahrbuch, New Series, 22/1980, pp. 110-133, here: p. 117 ( digitized version ).

[11] Consists of the reformed members of the Small Council (cantonal government). Its powers were passed on to the Council of Churches in 1978.

[12] Peter Metz: History of the Canton of Graubünden. Volume 3, Calven, Chur 1993, ISBN 3-905261-03-0 , p. 201 f.

[13] Jolanda Nydegger: "And it was also to blame that we then had ski pants." In: Swiss Journal for History, 57/2007, Issue 4, pp. 457–464 ( digitized version ).

[14] Christina Caprez: The first Grisons pastor. Greti Caprez-Roffler, campaigner for equality. In: Mitteilungen 16 (2016), Kulturforschung Graubünden ( digitized version ), pp. 28–31, here: p. 28; the same: Greti Caprez-Roffler, the first pastor. Radio SRF 2 Kultur , Passage, November 20, 2015, 60 minutes ( digitized ).

[15] In Furna, however, there were only 6 no to 112 yes.

[16] Greti Caprez-Roffler: The pastor, memoirs of the first Grisons theologian, II. Episode and conclusion. In: Bündner Jahrbuch, New Series, 23/1981, pp. 94–112, here: p. 94 ( digitized version ).

[17] Eduard Schweingruber : Frauenart. A psychological study from practical life for practical life. Gotthelf-Verlag, Zurich 1940.

[18] Greti Caprez-Roffler: The pastor, memoirs of the first Grisons theologian, II. Episode and conclusion. In: Bündner Jahrbuch, New Series, 23/1981, pp. 94–112, here: pp. 103 f. ( Digitized version ).

[19] In Zurich this was the first ordination for women after Rosa Gutknecht and Elise Pfister .

[20] Cf. Christina Caprez: The pastor as a harbinger of a new era? Greti Caprez-Roffler in the Rheinwald 1966–1970. In: Swiss Journal for Religious and Cultural History, 111/2017, pp. 195–213 ( digitized version ).