www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Women's Ordination

Deaconesses in the local Anglican church here in Malaysia function similarly to that of the "Khouriya" or "Matushka". No liturgical function whatsoever, but more on other things.

On another note, while women cannot be ordained to the priesthood simply because of what I understand as an unchangeable fatherly nature, women still have a place in the Church and are not considered second class.

They have different roles which will be equally fulfilling as the priesthood. Reflecting on both Ephesians 4:11 and Romans 8:28 can give us a perspective on my less than 2 cents worth.

What would be a special role of Matushka and where can I find any canonical regulations on this subject so I can advise my wife?

I don't think I can advise on canonical regulations as I am not married yet... Hahaha.

However, what I do know is that (as I have been told) priest's wives have a vocation within the parish community indeed. She is the parish administrator, women's group coordinator etc. That much I've been told.

However, I'm going to hide that fact from whoever is going to be my wife... lol.

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Indigo is correct that one of he best resources for understanding the Church's position (east and west) on sustaining an all male priesthood is Pope John Paul II's writings especially his Theology of the Body (whose original title is actually "Male and Female He Created Them.")

The fact that the question of women's ordination would be raised at all points to how secularized our theological orientations have become. The proposal for women's ordination is entirely based on the secular worldview of function versus sign and sacrament (Mystery.) This has is its roots in all of the bad "--isms" from history: Gnosticism, Manicheanism, Rationalism, Nietzcsheism, Communism, radical feminisim and secularism and artificial dualisms (spirit verse matter, body verse soul.) From these heresies stem a certain anti-incarnational disdain for the physical world and consequently a complete ignorance of the relevatory value of gender. Gender is not arbitrary or a "choice" or socially conditioned. It reveals something very fundamental about the created order which gives sense to everything else.

In contrast the Church (and God's Revelation) operates from a the standpoint of sacrament and symbol: There is a "theology" of the body--a "language" of the body which points to and in fact allows us to participate in the Great Mystery. This Great Mystery which JPII calls the "fundamental element of human existence" is the DNA of the created order. If we get this right we get everything right. If we get this wrong we get everything else wrong. In fact, where there is confusion about geneder there is necessarily theological confusion (and liturgical confusion.) It is the Spousal Mystery--the way in which God entered into intimate relationship with His own creation, especially the human creature, later to become the Church. It is precisely through gender that we actually love as God loves, that we therefore become most like God. Our gender is an icon of the interior life of the Holy Trinity.

A proposal for women's priestly ordination actually ends up committing the same offense it purports to be against: ingoring the intrinsic dignity and holiness of womanhood which does not have to be proven via function and usefulness. It ends up objectifying womanhood and reducing its value to function and usefulness (which itself ends up being chauvinistic.)

Secondly this question of women's place in Liturgy shows an igorance of something very fundamental about Eastern Liturgy--the chanting faithful "make" the Liturgy, not the priest. In fact, much of the prayer of the Church (Divine Office) can be done without a priest. This was actually the norm in the early Church. Women's place among the faithful is therefore, if you want to speak in these terms, even more "important" than the place of the ordained minister which is most often coveted as a place of power and prominence by the women's priestly ordination perspective. Far from providing some sort of "equality" for women this "power-prominence" view insults everyone including the faithful,womanhood and the Litugy itself by reducing things to a secular based value system.

This Spousal Mystery is most fully played out in Liturgy as Liturgy is the source and summit of everything and therefore of the DNA of the created order. ("Christ emerges from the tomb like a bridegroom from the bridal chamber"--Matins of Pascha.)Yet, ironically this Spousal dimension of Liturgy and its ramifications for the non-issue of women priests is left completely fallow by Liturgists today. I believe that this more than anything else is the basis for the resistance to the mildly inclusive langauge of the revised Divine Liturgy text of the Ruthenian Metropolia of Pittsburgh. This resistance has nothing to do with "conservative versus liberal" or chauvinist-Patriarchal versus "enlightened" and inclusive. Those who are troubled by inclusive language in the Liturgy are concerned that our approach to Liturgy, which should be informed entirely by the mystical, liturgical sacramental worldview (which sees the revelatory value of gender)is being informed to some extent by the secular, non-sacramental worldview.

The early centuries of the Church had a much fuller understanding of this Spousal Mystery and consequently of the body as informed by true Christian, Incarnational spirituality.
This was the primary reason for deaconesses: to assist at the adult baptism of women because baptism was done nude (or much closer to total nudity than we dare to do today. We are even too prudish today to baptize babies completely nude.)

If we are honestly going to return to ordained deaconness it would seem to be more theologicaly and liturgically honest at the samet time to return to this practice for the main reason it was done in the early church. This would be our return to the more Spousal worldview of our ancestors and baptize nude in baptistries that can accommodate total immersion of adults. The reason nude or near-nude baptims would seem outrageous to us today reveals just how colored by the secular,non-sacramental, non-liturgical worldview our view of life and liturgry has become over the centuries since the early Church.

Yes, there is SOOOOOOO much more to liturgical renewal than text on a page or musical settings of chant. And we have not even begun this actual liturgical renewal. "Calling all Liturgists! Calling all liturgists!: " Till the soil of the Spousal Mystery and we will have a REAL renewal of Liturgy, Church, family, culture, nation and world. Text on a page could then be just one vital aspect of this real renewal and a more universally accepted one as well.

--Fr. Thomas J. Loya, STB, MA.

As to revelation, I do remember, somewhere in St. Paul's epistles that he taught against women being "teachers" in the Church. We also have the imagery, in the parable about the foolish virgins, of Christ as the Bridegroom. The Church has taken that imagery and run with it. Since a priest is "another Christ", he must also be capable of being portrayed as a bridegroom, i.e., he must be male. It would be highly inappropriate (despite what the Massachusetts State Legislature and Courts have to say) to have a female step into the role of bridegroom. Another good source-Fr. Thomas Hopko of the OCA, in the 1980's, authored a book on why the Orthodox Church does not ordain women as priests. In one of the essays, Bishop Kallistos (Ware) quotes an early apostolic document (Apostolic Constitutions?-I forget-I'll have to go pull the book out of one of my boxes)as stating that the reason that women do not stand around the Holy Table celebrating the Eucharist is because "the Lord would not have it" (this is more of a paraphrase than a quote-I'm in my office, and operating from memory-but the book is well worth reading).

In Christ,
Dn. Robert

Father Thomas,

Fantastic input! Perhaps many of us who believed against the ordination of women never saw it so beautifully. Personally, I've always had reservations in having women in holy orders but never discounted that they have a special place and calling in the Church. However, I never saw in the liturgy and your words made it all happen for them. God bless you!

any special role of presbytera in parish life could be possible and even justified within a context of agricultural pre-modern society, but not in our days. Assigning any function within a parish community to a priest's wife is unjust. It is hard enough to be forced to move around from parish to parish (even from country to country) and live in places one does not to want even visit...

Fr. Ihar,

In our (Carpatho-Rusyn Greek Catholic) setting now, the role of Matushka or "Pani" (assuming one has a Bishop who will ordain married priests in the first place) is largely an issue of discernment. In the Orthodox Church in America, and in the UGCC, many of the Matushki do take on important roles in the parish, such as catechists and choir directors. But, that is largely voluntary.

In Christ,
Dn. Robert

Slava Isusu Chrystu!
That's precisely what I'm trying to say - if Matushka wants to assume a certain role in the community - let her do it. If not - do not force her, do not compare her to other matushkas, who do. I guess that this insistence on 'special role' of matushkas comes from the remote mountainous places in Western Ukraine or plains of Great Muscovy, where besides local landlord only priest's families were usually educated.

I recently spoke with a priest's wife. I asked her, out of respect, how she would like to be called: matushka or presbetyra. With a sigh, she said "Donna -- my name."

-- John

1 Timothy 2:12 "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man" I don't necessarily think this is a ban on woman serving as teachers, but its the combination of "teach" and "authority" that serves as a scriptural ban on ordaining women as priests.

There is scriptural support for the concept of a woman serving in the office of deacon in Romans 16:1, where the Paul introduces Phoebe, and most translations describe her as a "servant," but the word used there that is translated as "servant" is the same word used to describe a deacon elsewhere.

If you look at the term "teacher" in the sense of "official teacher" (i.e. Bishop, and, by extension, priest), then that verse may apply. I also remember a Pauline instruction that women should be quiet in the assembly. That would also militate against female ordination. As to diaconate, many translations refer to Phoebe as a deaconess. There definitely was a female diaconate in the early Church. Rome officially teaches that while the male diaconate involves the sacrament of Holy Orders, the female diaconate does not. Women deacons primarily assisted in Baptisms of women (sans clothing), and also kept order on the "women's side" of the church during sevices. They would also bring Holy Communion to sick and infirm women.

In Christ,
Dn. Robert

I like the way she put it. Reminds me of my Jesuit friend who insists on calling him by his name rather than calling him "Father". But he is quick to defend why Catholics call their priests "Father". Haha. A useful discussion for another time.

The prior language already was inclusive. The current version is actually exclusive--truly limited to here and now: "for us;" "who loves us all". Yes, perhaps this is the way modern people speak because it is all about them. They have no sense of the sacred --or of those who have gone before them and those who will come after them.

There is nothing mild about dropping words from the Creed. It shows a disrepect for the Fathers of the Church who formulated it and for Rome which has already said it should not be done. Thus there are two objections which I have to the desexing of the Liturgy and the Creed. They are related. The one which you mention above and the fact that the Creed and Liturgy do not comport with the original texts. They are thereby distorted. They are distorted, as you mention, in a way that accepts the world's view of male and female--accidents of evolution--rather than God's creation which reflects his salvific plan for the salvation of all men.

I'm going to earn myself some umbrage. Earlier in my life, I was a member of an Episcopal parish before I became Orthodox and we had a woman priest. Taking communion from woman priest is no different than taking it from the hands of a man. Despite pious platitudes to the contrary, it is a matter of discipline. Just as tomorrow the Latin Church could do away with celibacy, so also --despite all the comments to the contrary--it could allow women priests. It will only happen when there are too few mean willing to be priests.

Just my two cents worth.