Comments on: Female Priests: Women and Ministry in the Orthodox Church

By: Lucian

Lucian — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 19:58:18 +0000

Yes, genders are iconic, inasmuch as the family is the image of the Holy Trinity. Gender is the image of the eternal personal attributes of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And the common human nature is an image of the Trinity’s common divine nature. I’d also like to add something further: as Christians, we are to immitate Christ, who “humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:8). Now, what is harder ? To die on the Cross, or to not become a priest ? If we cannot follow God even in the small things, how can we follow Him in the big ones ? If God would have said through the Apostles who wrote the Bible to have only women serve as priests, since they are as a rule more religious and devout than men, I would not have stood against Him. And if He would have said: let only children be priests, because they are pure in heart, I would not have opposed Him. It’s not rational to oppose God when salvation comes from selfless obedience: it’s a contradiction in terms.

By: David Commini

David Commini — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 17:38:17 +0000

I like your post, as your thoughts are well put and I easily understand what you are saying. However, I agree with Fr. John and Mrs. Karissa. Women play an important part in the Church even though they do not serve behind the altar, but just because they don’t serve behind the altar does not mean that they are not equal.

I’ll leave you with this link from Orthodox Info which I think explains women’s role in the Orthodox Church quite well: http://orthodoxinfo.com/praxis/headcoverings.aspx

By: J

Wed, 06 Jun 2012 16:41:16 +0000

You didn’t mention the Orthodox scholar Eva C. Topping in your bib, so I’m wondering if you’ve read any of her work? Like Karras and Behr-Sigel, she’s written/spoken extensively on this issue, though it took some amount of digging for me to find her work. She’s even more direct about her own opinions/position per the intersection of culture/spirituality as it played out in Church Fathers’ exegeses. As a church that touts itself as being a “rational” body, its ostensible lack of any real or cogent defense concerning its discriminatory practices against women is… unsavory, to say the least.
Another important point: (Behr-Sigel speaks a lot about this) on the issue of the dual nature of Christ – going back to what you said about Man as an icon of Christ – if women aren’t explicitly represented in Christ’s humanity, if they are, in effect, unable to “put on” Christ, how then does this affect women’s salvation? Overall, I tend to think there are some serious gaps in their understanding/awareness of male and female ontology. It’s simply not enough to say that God prescribed differing roles to different types of humans.
I tend to think it is people like Fr. Ware, et al. who, in acknowledging that they don’t know the answers, but are nevertheless willing to enter into dialog with people about it (rather than becoming either hostile or annoyed and relegating the issue to that of “mystery”), are exhibiting a true, Christ-like humility… and we certainly need more of them.

By: Fr. John Whiteford

Fr. John Whiteford — Tue, 29 May 2012 11:24:47 +0000

I should also add that the fact that a tradition of the Church is ignored does not mean that it should be.

By: Fr. John Whiteford

Fr. John Whiteford — Tue, 29 May 2012 11:23:14 +0000

There were priestesses throughout the biblical period, and so the fact that there were never priestesses in either the Old or New Testament Church would have to have been an intentional choice, and not accidental omission.

Also, one argument from experience. In the Church of the Nazarene, from whence we both converted, they always allowed women to be ordained. In the very early days about 20% of their ministers were women, however, by the time I was growing up in the Nazarene Church, I never saw a woman who was the pastor of a Church, and while the number of ordained women in the Nazarene Church has I think been going up, they still generally serve in ways that any Orthodox woman could serve in without being ordained (music ministry, children’s ministry, adult education, medical missionary, etc).

The reason for that is, in my opinion, being a pastor is a fatherly role. Being a Matushka is obviously a motherly role. Men don’t do well in motherly roles, and women do not do well in fatherly roles. Men and women are different, as Time magazine discovered to the shock of the world a few years ago.

By: davidjdunn

davidjdunn — Sun, 27 May 2012 19:01:52 +0000

Did you intend to include a link?

By: Jay Quine

Jay Quine — Sun, 27 May 2012 16:59:43 +0000

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