SEXUALITY AND RELIGION GAY LUTHERAN PASTOR FACES TRIAL BY CHURCH

OAKLAND, Calif. In the latest sexual controversy to rock American Lutheranism, testimony began Friday in the church trial of a pastor charged with being ''a practicing homosexual.''

The Rev. Ross Merkel, pastor of St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Oakland, has been heading for a showdo

wn with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America since one Sunday last June, when he told his congregation something most of them already suspected.

''I am a gay person in a committed relationship with another man,'' the clergyman said on the 15th anniversary of his ordination. ''I realized that I was becoming increasingly angry at having to hide an important part of who I am.''

His announcement eventually got the attention of Lutheran Bishop Lyle Miller of Northern California, who filed charges against Merkel in December for ''conduct incompatible with the character of the ministerial office.''

Friday, the nation's largest Lutheran denomination got down to the business of deciding whether Merkel should be defrocked.

About 200 of his parishioners and other supporters packed a hotel meeting room as a 10-member church panel heard the first of two days of testimony.

Speaking in Merkel's defense was retired Lutheran Bishop Stanley Olson, who said the church has not defined what it means by ''practicing homosexual.''

Olson asked how the church can say homosexual orientation is not a sin, call

sexuality ''a gift of God,'' but allow homosexuals no way to express their sexuality.

''Either God is sadistic, or the church is sadistic,'' Olson said.

This is the first trial of a pastor accused of homosexual acts since the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America was formed in 1987 with the merger of three Lutheran denominations.

Two San Francisco congregations St. Francis and First United have been suspended for hiring three homosexual seminary graduates as co-pastors.

Merkel's 270-member congregation in Oakland's Dimond-Glenview neighborhood has stood by its gay pastor.

Representing the accusing bishop in Friday's trial was layman Patrick Schiltz, who acknowledged that Merkel was ''well-loved by the members of St. Paul.''

''The real issue that divides us is whether the (larger) church can enforce standards of conduct for its clergy,'' Schiltz said in his opening statement. ''The question is not whether Merkel should be pastor of St. Paul's but whether he should be a pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Americ

a.''