www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy Valerie Karras, Fr. Taft, women priests the Liturgy

The ordination rite for women references Phoebe, the ordination rite for men references Stephen. There is a difference.

Fr. Saunders comments are validated by the above quote from the ordination ritual you found. In the ordination ritual for the male deaconate, the Apostles law is referenced. No such reference is made with respect to the women.

lm,

I said they were very close I did not say there were not differences, but to get to the heart of the matter:

"the one to be ordained is brought before the Bishop. As he declaims the invocation, Divine grace,[2] etc., she bows her head, on which he lays his hand.
[2] See the rite for male Deacons.

"Divine grace, which always heals what is infirm and completes what is lacking, ordains N., the most devout Subdeacon, as Deacon. Let us therefore pray for him, that the grace of the All-Holy Spirit may come upon him."

is the ordinational form present in the ordinations for major orders in the Byzantine Church. The same formula is used for deaconesses with obvious gender changes. The practice of the Byzantine Church stands in contradiction to the that of the Latin where it is pretty clear deaconesses were not considered a major order. All indications, including ordination formula, vestments, communing in the altar, and being handed the chalice point to the fact that the Byzantine Church considered this an ordination. In my opinion it is equal to but different than the male diaconate as the functions though similar were not identical.

Fr. Deacon Lance

The first footnote in the ordination for women to the diaconate states:


If there is no reference to the service of the Mysteries, there is a significant difference with respect to the nature of the ordination and whether it is considered as one of the Holy Mysteries. One must also avoid of course, the bias that because this is the way the East did it, it must be so. I don't doubt that there was an ordination for deaconesses. I doubt, however, that it conferred the same grace that a deacon receives in the Holy Mystery of ordination.

For some reason, your position reminds me of an answer that the Archbishop of Canterbury (in the 40s or 50s I am told) gave when he was asked if he believed in infant baptism. His response: "Believe in it? I've seen it!"

I simply point out that since the words of the ordination are significantly different, and since words signify realities, the reality signified in the one is different than in the other. Since we have no Ecumenical Council which has stated that women's ordination is one of the Holy Mysteries, we cannot conclude that there really are or were women deacons in the same sense in which you are a deacon.

As I understand it, a Bishop has the fullness of Order, and the deacon and priest participate in that fullness but do not have it in the same manner as the Bishop. But since there cannot be women Bishops, neither can there be women priests or deacons (at least in the same sense as male deacons).

Furthermore, if the order of women deacon existed in the same way as with the male deacon, I would expect we would find this order prevalent in both rites.

But back to the main topic. Is the possibility of women deacon's critical to the faith? Isn't a proper translation and understanding of the Creed far more important? Why is it that the seminary should be so concerned about the positions of Valerie Karras to give us a peak at women deaconesses (she teaches by the way at the bastion of orthodxy, SMU, where the Pope's former classmate, Fr. Charles Curran also teaches), but we can't get a proper translation of the Creed given to us by the Fathers of the Councils of Nicea and Constantinople? There is something amiss here and the two issues are related to one another.

First I note that Valerie Karras has never denied the possibility of women priests. Also take a look at this article:

The Significance of the Maleness of Jesus Christ?

http://stnina.org/journal/art/1.2.11

In it Karras argues that there is no significance of the maleness of Jesus Christ. Of course, if His maleness is not significant, it does not matter whether priests be male or female, they only need to be human.

Elsewhere, in an article on the same site, she argues that God created "male and female" in anticipation of the fall. Marriage, however, which requires male and female, was instituted in the beginning before the the fall. Marriage reflects the mystery of Christ's love for His bride the Church.

Compare Karras' view with the actual account in Genesis where God commands Adam and Eve, before the fall, to be fruitful and multiply.

Also note that in the same article by Karras referenced above, Karras makes the claim that anthropos is best translated as "human being." She implicitly asserts that anthropos did not have a marked meaning in the New Testament. That's simply not true. See my earlier comments in this thread to Fr. Deacon Lance. Her scholarship is skewed because the facts don't correspond to her theory that the maleness of Christ was not significant.

Dear Jeff,
The Blessing of the Lord!

Fr. Serge

P.S. May God grant you every joy in the New Year of His abundant grace!

lm,

"I simply point out that since the words of the ordination are significantly different, and since words signify realities, the reality signified in the one is different than in the other."

There is the rub, the words of ordination are not different. The prayer of ordination is as I pointed out:

"Divine grace, which always heals what is infirm and completes what is lacking, ordains N., the most devout Subdeacon, as Deacon. Let us therefore pray for him, that the grace of the All-Holy Spirit may come upon him."

Only the gender is changed for a deaconess.

The prayers you point out are prayers for the ordained after the ordination has taken place not the prayer of ordination itself.

Again the Latin and Byzantine Churches look at his differently I think. The Latin Church has always seen the minor orders and the diaconate as steps to the priesthood and worries that deaconesses will lend strenght to the arguement for women priests. This is compounded by the fact that the Latin Church since Vatican II has committed many priestly duites to its deacons: baptism, marriage, funerals, etc.

The Byzantine Church has always looked on each order seperately each with its own duties and functions. Deacons in the Byzantine Church perform no priestly function and to have deaconesses is not seen as a threat to the priesthood being male only. Deaconesses did not have a liturgical role in the cathedral churches but in monasteries they served the same role as male deacons performing the incensations and litanies and reading the Gospel.

Fr. Deacon Lance

In general, one must look at the entire context of a particular liturgical ritual if one is trying to determine the meaning. Thus each of the prayers of the ordination service is significant, not just the one invocation "The Divine Grace . . . "

One of the major Reformation errors was the reduction of the Anaphora to the Institution Narrative - and the source of this error can be found in the pre-Reformation idea of Western theologians that the Institution Narrative was all that mattered. This idea persisted among the Latins, and led to such aberrations as intoxicated clergy leaning against bread trucks and mumbling "Hoc est enim Corpus Meum" - I'm thinking of a specific incident in New York in Cardinal Spellman's time (the Cardinal promptly bought the bread truck, bread and all, and sent it up to a Trappist Monastery with instructions that the monks should consume all the bread, down to the last crumb).

This sort of absurdity doesn't do for the Eucharist, and it also doesn't do for ordinations.

Fr. Serge

Dear Fr. Serge,

That sort of absurdity also leads to ridiculous concepts like liturgies that must be under one hour. It also leads to the forgetting of the hours, since why would one go to Vespers if there is no communion? That's all that matters!

Incidentally, I've been thinking of writing up a defense of the antiphons (the enarxis, is it called?) based on Schmemann's thinking--one must look at their function in the whole of the liturgy, not just on their historical meaning. They represent the "gathering" which is constitutive of the Body of Christ, the Church (the ecclesing of the ecclesia, if that makes any sense).

It seems to me that one way to answer revisionists would be to point out the reason for the various parts of the liturgy. Otherwise, when a historicist says "that's old, and the original purpose is gone; therefore, it's unnecessary," we are at a loss. The antiphons may have their origin in the processions in Constantinople, but that's not why they remain.

Anyway, I realize this is a bit off topic, but your post made me think of it.

Karl

Fr Serge,

Just to be clear I am in no way supportive of women in the priesthood. I just believe deaconesses are a seperate issue with its own merits.

I am not dismissing the other prayers but I find it significant that the Divine Grace prayer is used, as well as the communing in the altar and handing over of the chalice. Also since the Byzantines did not adopt the Latin numbering of 7 sacraments until very late, they could have seen it as a sacrament and yet not part of the three-fold sacrament of Holy Orders.

What do you make of it?

Fr. Deacon Lance

Fr. Serge,

I am rather sleepy this morning. Please fill in the conclusion of the implied syllogism. Are you saying that the entire ordination rite ought to be considered with respect to men and women deacons and that the differences means something?

What are you saying?

Thanks.

lm

Fr. Deacon Lance,

There is precedent for thinking that although there are permanent deacons (I assume you are one), no one is ordained to the priesthood without being ordained to the deaconate first (even in the East). That suggests something about the relationship to the priesthood.

But more importantly, although there is some history of deaconesses, whatever the nature of their ordination, it doesn't seem to me to be pressing issue of the day in the United States unless of course one is taken with the feminist agenda. One of the biggest problems of the day (and which makes me think of Fr. Taft's statement which I referenced above as really odd) is Catholics complete lack of understanding of marriage.

The most pressing problem of the day, however, has a whole lot to do with Genesis, Ephesians, why God made man, male and female, and what marriage is a symbol of.

The society at large, which is very influence by the feminist agenda, gives us contraception, abortion, fetal stem cell research, and in some places gay marriage. Catholics (including Byzantines) have been notorious for voting for these measures. I say that's a real crisis and the answer isn't to tinker with the Creed.

Let me be very blunt. We are worried about how to get more people in Church and how to get vocations, so we are willing to tinker with the ancient Creed so as not to offend women -- thinking this will get more women interested in our Church. The Church, however, has a very simple answer for how most people are to get more people in Church -- since most of us do not have a vocation to celibacy, but will follow Christ in the Holy Mystery of marriage---have children--be fruitful and multiply. And when there are more children--there are more vocations! God's simple, but wise plan. This doesn't, however, fit very well with the feminist agenda in the society at large.

Let me suggest that the Byzantine Church has been dying for the last thirty years because its faithful haven't followed Humanae Vitae and probably don't know anything about it (or if they do, they don't think it is binding on them). I have proof positive of that fact from my immigrant grandparents who had 14 children. Very few of their grandchildren have many children.

I suggest that the biggest problem which Byzantine Church has is one it shares with the Roman Church--it's buying in to the modern culture of death which doesn't have a clue about marriage, about man being made male and female.

I am all for a restoration of things Byzantine, but this tinkering with the Creed and inviting Valerie Karras as the featured speaker to the seminary just doesn�t seem to address the pressing issues of the day or help solve the problem of why we are a dying Church.

Thanks.

lm

Fr. Serge,

I am very sleepy. I see I missed the entire first part of your response.

You're right, Fr Serge, that the Lutherans got the idea that the Verba were all that mattered so you got the opposite of Assyrians, no canon but the words of institution, but:


But Father, IIRC AFAIK according to traditional theology east and west that wouldn't mean anything because it wasn't in the context of a Mass, and theoretically besides that wouldn't drunkenness throw intention into doubt?

Reminds me of the joke I heard at theological college about the 'new French eucharistic prayer', 'Voila, c'est Jesus!'

Granted if that or the Verba really were all you needed to have a valid Mass a lot of nominal church members in a hurry (to get to the mall, the golf course or the television to watch football) would be happy. But it's not. Too bad.

Unfortunately it seems they are used as interlocking parts of the same agenda.

We need to ask why we have three antiphons and what they express. What is the essence of the matter? We had three full antiphons before in our history, why don't we have them now?

Time for another antiphon thread?