Inclusive Language in the Liturgy

Public Orthodoxy is making waves again, this time by daring to talk about…women.

Actually they aren’t even talking about women. They’re talking about Greek. The GOA (Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America) made it about women when they opted to approve a revision of the creed from “for us and for our salvation” to “for us men and for our salvation.” The problem with this revision, the authors (Aristotle Papanikolaou and John Fotopoulos) is that it makes gender exclusive language that was originally gender inclusive. Greek, like many other languages, has gendered nouns. Anthropos is a masculine noun. But that does not mean that anthropos is male anymore than German a German girl is an “it” (das Mädchen is a neuter noun). Anthropos refers to humanity in general. Anér means “man.” Continue reading “Inclusive Language in the Liturgy”

Vladimir Solovyov on the Tower of Babel

I have been working through Vladimir Solovyov’s Justification of the Good and wanted to get your thoughts on an interesting passage. Solovyov is great at making clever arguments, and this one about the Tower of Babel struck me as particularly clever.  Continue reading “Vladimir Solovyov on the Tower of Babel”

Concerns about the Great and Holy Council

The First Council of Nicaea
The First Council of Nicaea

Soon the Orthodox Church will convoke a Great and Holy Council, the first such council in over a millennium. Though by no means ecumenical in any official sense (at least not yet), it is a historic meeting, for which I have felt a deep and abiding ambivalence.

I am a convert to the Orthodox Church. Unlike many converts, I did not see the deep and rich traditions of the Orthodox Church as providing me with resources to be more fundamentalistic than I was before (such as I hear creationists citing Basil as proof of a young earth). I was never a fundamentalist. What attracted me to Orthodoxy was the ambiguity of it all, which is another way of saying Mystery. Jaroslav Pelikan, another convert, described Orthodoxy as the church of the seven councils that we deem ecumenical. We have a lot of other canons, synods, traditions, and opinions, but they are not finally and firmly authoritative in the same way that those minimum of dogmas are.

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The Kingdoms of God and Constantine

So now I am going to sum up Part II of Orthodoxy without Empire. Last time I talked about the church-culture limen and two inadequate ways of relating to it. In Part II, I argue that a more coherent account of this limen can actually be found in the rubble of the Byzantine Empire. I know that sounds counterintuitive when you consider that one of the options I criticize is a kind of neo-imperialism, but hear me out, because I think what I am working toward is actually an anti-imperialistic. It’s this socio-political ideal called symphonia.

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Prayerful Napping on Christmas Eve

It’s Christmas Eve. My kids are watching The Magic Schoolbus. Meanwhile I am uttering silent prayers for a peaceful evening. We are about to go to church. I expect we will be home a bit after midnight. Our kids will probably get us up at 6:30. If we’re lucky.

This is holy. All of this. The fatigue, the chaos of the holidays, the screaming of children, and the cookies we baked from a package because I didn’t have time to make shortbread – these are sanctified because they are ordered toward the Eucharist.

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Why I Love-Hate “Women’s Month”

cropped-Theotokos-Eucharist.jpgMarch is the month when women across my archdiocese will take a more visible role during the Divine Liturgy. Mostly “Women’s Month” means they will read the Epistle and collect the offering. I am glad for this month because I do think women need not only work with the kids or in the kitchen, but giving them one month out of the year feels like an empty gesture that, I’m afraid, reinforces the paternalism it pretends to testify against.

Women’s Month is proof that there is misogyny in our church, just like Black History Month proves systemic racism. African Americans need one month out of the year only because people like me pretty much get free reign over the other eleven. The same is true for women. Every month is Men’s Month.

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