www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy Female Readers/Lectors in the Byzantine Ruthenian Catholic Church

And as I said up thread - if these 'real men' don't volunteer then what ? And that BTW is a serious question.

Apotheoun - I've been posting here for some years and I don't think I have ever asked publicly for a thread to be closed down .

Anhelyna's point is very moot in Old Rite Orthodox experience.

Old Rite communities had to learn to adapt, not only because of the revolution and exile, but because so many men were drawn away from the parishes by the two world wars and the gulag. Without women on the krylosy there would have been no chanting and parish liturgical life would have ground to a halt.

In some places there were great arguments when life returned to a greater semblance of normality, but as far as choirs were concerned women were there to stay. In some bezpopovtsy communities patronized by the great Old Believer industrialists women had been part of factory choirs for several decades before the revolution. The factories in question had their own chapels and processions could be held in the grounds prior to 1905.

Also, women were often the strictest and devoutest members of communities, particularly in priestless ones which demanded especially strict observation of canons. As knizhnitsy, women preserved book learning and knowledge and within communal worship the babushky often were the ones with the musical knowledge to assist the nastavnik. The semi-monastic nature of many priestless communities afforded women a high place in parish life. Without women in worship Old Rite Orthodoxy would have collapsed.

I know the post is about the Byzantine Ruthenian Catholic Church, but I think this tangent is pertinent to the direction the thread has taken.

Times change!!! Economia!!!

We must simply redouble our efforts and push and cajole men to take on their proper archic and hierarchic roles during the liturgy - like we do with the vocations crisis in connection with the priesthood. But what we must not do is alter Apostolic Tradition to fit a non-Christian worldview that sees sexual differentiation as irrelevant.

Economia is not about overturning Tradition. Your attitude would simply replace Tradition with something new. If economia becomes the norm it is no longer simply economy.

Another series of comments by Deacon Patrick that are helpful can be found at the link below:

More Misbehavior Threatening the Unity of the Orthodox Churches in America? [monomakhos.com]

Those interested in more information about the archic and hierarchic roles of God and man should read the article, "The Problem with Hierarchy: Ordered Relations in God and Man," in the fall 2010 issue of St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly (SVTQ 54 2, 2010).

Apotheoun:

Would you kindly give us some background on Deacon Patrick? What jurisdiction is he attached to, is he is an author, a professor at SVS?

Thanks.

From Wikipedia, he appears to be OCA and a professional journalist, at least in the past:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Patrick_Mitchell

Thanks J Benedict, it sheads insite into his opinions of social structure.

No Apotheoun - that is not my attitude at all!!! You make the whole issue sound like a fight. I think you have simply interpreted the post in a way to suit your combative attitude. Nowhere have I advocated replacing Tradition with economia, so, please, get off your soap-box.

I am observing that without economia at certain times and in certain places there would be no Tradition. Tradition is that which we have received, and without a means of transmission there can be no Tradition. It would die.

If we look at Catacomb Christianity in the USSR we see that communities had to be spiritually creative in order to sustain Christian life. Babushky baptised their grandchildren. Was this economia wrong? Monks took the oil of unction to the dying and annointed them in the absence of a clergyman. Wrong? Priests blessed wedding rings for spiritual children exiled hundreds of miles away. Nuns carried the Holy Gifts to imprisoned clergy - in one case even hidden inside an apple. This was not about trampling Tradition. It was an measure of economia in the face of necessity. Throwing canons at clergy in the gulag, or at those taking them the Holy Mysteries would be meaningless.

We do need to remedy some situations and practices which arise in the life of the Church, but also need to accept necessity when it arises and has arisen in the past. This does not mean that anyone who proposes economia is the enemy of Tradition or is a raging Renovationist who wants to move the goal posts.

I have merely observed what has happened in one section of Byzantine Rite Christianity and concurred that it was done to preserve liturgical and spiritual life. What we do to redress practices that develop in the face of necessity is another matter.

However, this is becoming a tangent from the original thread.

I know it is Lent, but God save us from the uber-zealous converts. From what I know, speaking with many from the OCA, they have their hands full with them.

No, it is not a fight at all Fr. Mark, at least as far as I am concerned it is not; instead, I just do not agree with you, because I believe that it is not preserving Biblical and Apostolic Tradition to confuse the proper roles of men and women in the liturgical assembly, but that such actions instead involve overthrowing that Tradition for something non-Christian.

Below is a post by Fr. Deacon Patrick that sums up my own take on the issues involved in this thread, and why I believe that women must never be placed in a position of authority over men in a mixed-sex liturgical assembly:


"His Grace seems to have retired for the night. Please pardon me for offering my own answer. This is at least something I have written quite a bit about:

The Church does in fact tonsure women to be nuns and to be readers in female monasteries, and it has in the past ordained them as deaconesses when there was a sacramental need for such. But it has not regularly tonsured or ordained women to major or minor clerical ranks because this would place women over men in the Church�s sacramental hierarchy, violating both the natural relation of the sexes and the economical subjection of the woman to the man on account of the fall.

Like it or not, there is both a natural order between the man and woman, resembling the order within the Trinity, and an economical order between the man and woman on account of the fall. The economical order is one of many hierarchies established by God, subjecting some people to other people for the sake of survival and salvation (men over women, parents over children, masters over servants, rulers over people). The natural order of the man and the woman is not a hierarchy but an 'archy,' based on the man being the arche of the woman just as the Father is the arche (beginning, principle) of the Son and the Holy Spirit. The promotion of women over men in the sacramental hierarchy of the Church violates both of these orders, placing the woman in the 'archic' position over the man as the one to speak, to lead, to teach, to direct, to initiate.

These natural and economical orders are not overthrown by our 'new creation' in Christ. Instead, out of respect for them, the Apostle directed that women were not to speak in church or exercise authority over men. The Fathers all took their lead from the Apostle. Whenever the subject of women as priests came up, they merely cited the woman�s subjection to the man as the reason women can�t be priests. They didn�t make women readers for several reasons: (1) the singing of women was greatly restricted out of respect for the Apostle�s requirement for silence, (2) having women sing solo in the middle of the church was inconsistent with the modesty expected of women, who were also obliged to cover their heads in church, and (3) the office of reader was considered a priestly office, a first step toward higher offices.

That�s the tradition. That�s the scandal that most plainly sets the faithful of this generation apart from the faithless."


P.S. - I have italicized the font of Fr. Deacon Patrick's comments only in order to visually differentiate them from my own opening remarks.

P.P.S. - I admit that I have had to suffer through a lot of things in individual parishes, but I would still never equate them with a Soviet gulag. Extraordinary conditions may allow for economic accommodations to those conditions, but a temporary accommodation to a specific situation should never be made into a new norm for liturgical activity. And finally - of course - we are not facing that kind of persecution at the present time so there is no need for an application of economia.

While Orthodox WIki is hardly an authoritative source, it offers this succinct comment on the subject of Readers:

Purpose

In the past, low literacy rates meant that a Reader reading in church was the main way that people would hear Scripture read.
Some have argued that in societies with high literacy rates, the office of Reader is superfluous. Others, however, counter that in such societies where high literacy has caused information without meaning, the value of a dedicated Reader to prayers, psalms and epistles with parishioners is even more vital.

Allowances and Expectations

Exclusivity
In contemporary practice, any layperson may receive the priest's blessing to read on a particular occasion, particularly in the absence of an ordained reader. A layperson so blessed, even permanently, may not take on any of the prerogatives of an ordained reader, i.e. may not wear a cassock or sticharion within or outside of services.http://orthodoxwiki.org/Reader

This is consistent with 'real world' practice as I have observed in both the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic realms.

Dear Apotheoun - I should say that as an Old Ritualist I agree with you, but my question is what do we do when we have no choice, but allow economia? (... and yes this should be the exception, not the rule)

Do you believe in economia when it is needed?

In terms of liturgy and lack of male readers what should we do if there are no men available? What do you propose as an alternative? Should the priest do everything? (Please don't think I'm being derisive.This is a serious point.)

I should I add that I am not really talking about women as lectors as such, but as chanters in the choir. In Old Rite liturgy women now generally chant from the krylos (though not in a mixed krylos, but as a female choir), but would not fulfill the role of reader unless in a monastic community.

Forgive me for sounding grumpy!!!

Spasi Khristos - Hieromonk Mark

This would be fine, except that the fact that women are not allowed teaching/speaking roles in the liturgical assembly by divine institution, and no Church authority has the power contravene a divinely revealed truth.

Perhaps someone can supply quotations from the Holy Fathers were they allow women to be readers in mixed-sex congregations, but I have never found any quotation along those lines; and in fact in many cases the Fathers emphasize that that type of behavior is found only among heretics.

As I see it, the Biblical and Apostolic Tradition is not optional, but perhaps I am just old-fashioned.

The point I am trying to emphasize in my posts is that we are not in a crisis situation, and so rather than allowing men to shirk their archic and hierarchic roles during the liturgical synaxis, I believe that we should redouble our efforts to force men to act as men. Furthermore, if there is any place where non-Christian views should not be employed it is in the Divine Liturgy.

Finally, I do not see how buying into modernity is going to benefit the Church in the long run, especially when modern Western society extols as virtue things that are actually contrary to Biblical and Apostolical Tradition in connection with the roles of men and women.

P.S. - Perhaps priests need to teach about the liturgical roles of men and women rather than allowing women to simply act as men. The only time that women should be allowed to read the lessons is in a situation where there are no men present. Such a thing I suppose can happen at times, but I doubt it is a common thing that there are no men at all present during the Divine Liturgy here in the West.