Feature for Women’s History Month: Elaine Sollenberger (d. 2022)

For Women’s History Month 2026, Newsline is offering a feature for each issue in March to celebrate women who have been leaders in Church of the Brethren history. In this issue, we celebrate the first woman to serve as moderator of the Church of the Brethren Annual Conference.

From the March 2025 issue of Messenger magazine, a Newsline remembrance published on Feb. 18, 2022, and other sources:

Elaine Sollenberger was the first woman elected moderator of Annual Conference. Annual Conference is the oldest institution in the Church of the Brethren, and the first recorded meeting was in 1742.

Elected in 1987, Sollenberger moderated the 1989 Conference in Orlando, Fla. It was the denomination’s 203rd recorded annual meeting, held on the theme “Living as God’s Friends.”

In a rare situation in the church’s modern history, she also served as moderator a second time when she was asked to step in after an elected moderator became unable to serve in 1998. That Conference, the 212th recorded annual meeting, also was in Orlando on the theme, “…So that God is not ashamed to be called our God.”

In another groundbreaking role, Sollenberger was the first woman to chair the denomination’s General Board (now the Mission and Ministry Board). She served on the General Board from 1981 to 1986, chairing the board from 1984 to 1986. In addition, she was the first woman to serve as moderator of Middle Pennsylvania District.

In a Messenger profile, published just prior to her first time as moderator, she said, “Why make such a point of being the first female moderator? If that were the reason I was chosen, I would have resigned.”

She passed away on Feb. 14, 2022, at age 91. Find the Newsline remembrance at www.brethren.org/news/2022/brethren-bits-for-feb-18-2022