Anne Zernike
| Anne Zernike | |
|---|---|
Zernike by her husband
|
|
| Born |
30 April 1887 Amsterdam, The Netherlands |
| Died | 6 March 1972 (aged 84) Amersfoort, The Netherlands |
| Nationality | Dutch |
| Other names | Anne Mankes-Zernike |
| Occupation | minister/theologian |
| Years active | 1911-1948 |
| Known for | first ordained woman minister of the Netherlands |
| Spouse(s) | Jan Mankes |
Anne Zernike (1887–1972) was a Dutch, liberal theologian, who was the first ordained woman minister of the Netherlands. Though she began her career with the Mennonites, which was the only congregation that allowed female ministers at the time, the majority of her career was spent in the Dutch Protestant Association (NPB).
Anne Zernike was born on 30 April, 1887 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands to the teachers and mathematicians Antje (née Dieperink) and Carl Friedrich August Zernike. She was raised in a family of intellectuals, including a sister Elisabeth Zernike who became a novelist and a brother Fritz who would later win the Nobel Prize for Physics. She completed her primary schooling and attended the High School for Girls on the Keizersgracht. Zernike knew from childhood that she wanted to become a minister and her parents encouraged her to study, though her father did not believe that she would be accepted as a preacher. She began her studies at the University of Amsterdam and because the only denomination which would ordain women was the Mennonite Church, she joined that congregation. Upon completion of her university studies and her baptism at the age of 22, she became eligible to enter the Anabaptist Seminary, and completed her final examinations in 1911.
On 5 November 1911 in the Frisian town of Bovenknijpe (near Heerenveen), Zernike was ordained and preached her sermon on Jeremiah 31. She found it difficult to adjust to life in Bovenknijpe and was homesick for culture until she met the painter, Jan Mankes. After a brief courtship, they became engaged and married on 30 September 1915. Shortly thereafter, the couple moved to The Hague where their lives focused on participation in the artistic environment, including literature, painting and poetry; theology, including explorations of Christian Socialism, Taoism and theosophy; and the principals of pacifism and vegetarianism. During this period, Zernike, as was expected at the time, gave up her career for her husband's employment opportunities. As Jan's tuberculosis worsened and a doctor counseled that they relocate away from the damp of the sea and to a forested area, the couple moved in 1917 to Eerbeek. Shortly after they arrived, Zernike discovered she was pregnant and began working on her thesis which she titled, On historical materialism and social democratic ethics. Beint, their son was born on 1 March 1918 and that same autumn, she received her doctorate in divinity from the University of Amsterdam under the direction of Professor H. IJ Groenewegen. Jan succumbed to his illness on 23 April 1920 and Zernike left Eerbeek for Rotterdam the following year.
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