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41 comments from readers

no arms
08 July 2008 at 13:39

On the surface of things this might look like a victory for women who want to become Bishops, but how is that change beneficial to women across the globe? Presumably they still encourage a belief in a male 'god' the 'father'. the supreme authority. It also suggest a moral heirachy amongst women. We all know by now that many people in the church are no better behaved than those who profess belief when convenient regardless of gender. They continue to support some outdated and often condescending and unworkable set of values.

AQ
08 July 2008 at 13:57

We have had Anglican women bishops and priests in Toronto for years, In fact two of the women bishops served as the suffragan bishops for the area in which I live. Both of them were highly suitable and excellent bishops, one moved on to higher office as a diocesan bishop in another part of the country.

Contrary to conservative opinion, we were not struck down by divine wrath, nor have we taken up New Age goddess worship.

In fact life continued much as before with the church now being able to draw on the skills and abilities of all its members not the less than half when ordination was limited to men only.

madmac
08 July 2008 at 14:32

Reverend Fraser I find the manner in which you're gloating and celebrating your 'victory' is obscene. Whatever your belief, what has occured has meant a lot to people and for you to dismiss and trivialise their views "weird as they are" with comments like "sentimental tosh dressed up as pastoral care" brings me to the conclusion that you have a deeply uncharitable demeanour. An unpleasant, bile filled article if ever I read one, and from a so called man of God!!?!?

robroy
08 July 2008 at 16:06

The via media defenestrated. So much for tolerance.

The established church of England will be as successful as the the emasculated established church of Sweden where a whopping 1% of the populace is in church on a given Sunday.

angrywelshman
08 July 2008 at 16:21

I don't understand robroy's comment - is he trying to speak Latin? (Via media = Street media?) Or is he simply missing a word?

robroy
09 July 2008 at 11:26

1970 - 1 in 30 of the country were in the Church of England on a Sunday

1986 - 1 in 40

2006 - 1 in 60

2031 - 1 in 120 (if current trends don't sharply accelerate)

The CoE is in crisis, so let us drive away one of the bulwarks of the church, the Anglo-Catholics. And the Evangelicals will be next. And the liberals can really draw them in. Singing those gender neutral hymns:

"O for a thousand tongues to sing

My great Redeemer’s praise,

The glories of my God and King-Queen,

The triumphs of His-Her grace!"

That's going to fill the cathedrals.

Tom Roberts
09 July 2008 at 11:58

Robroy , try going to France south of Paris and see that Mass is celebrated in many churches only once every two months! The decline is not just here and Sweden, it's all over. The rule-based church with codes of purity is obsolete. Xtianity needs expression in new ways that make sense to our world today in order to thrive.

Taize draws thousands a day yet the church down the road at Cluny only a handful.

AQ
09 July 2008 at 18:25

Via media means basically the middle way. The CofE considers itself the middle way between out and out Catholicism and out and out Protestantism. As such it used to include people from both sides of the broad path. Now those on the edges are dropping away to go back to Rome or off to more Evangelical places. The question is how many will be left on the narrower path.

robroy
09 July 2008 at 21:41

"Now those on the edges are dropping away to go back to Rome." This is not Anglo-catholics "dropping out." This is reneging on promises give to them fourteen years ago and telling them, "there's the door, don't let it hit your back side." Really reprehensible when a church can't keep its word.

Rachel at Re vis.e Re form
09 July 2008 at 22:42

I think what some of this statistics are forgetting is that even though Sunday Church attendance has gone down, Christian retreats, holidays, cell groups, house groups, bible study groups and cafe church - indeed church in all its fresh expressions is really happening, or at least it is in my community. We are adapting Church to meet the people where they are at just in the same way that St Paul took his message to people by absorbing himself in their cultures.

thurstonian
10 July 2008 at 14:51

Hear, hear, Madmac! A nasty bit of crowing that ought to be unworthy of someone in his position. When the press reports that some of the synod members were in tears (not of joy) and it is clear that a significant minority has been disenfranchised at a stroke, it ill becomes the supporters of women bishops to badmouth their opponents in such a scurrilous way. "Blest are the poor in spirit," to be sure: but this was not poverty of spirit, it was sheer unpleasantness, a poverty in love. Shame on you, Mr Fraser.

AQ
10 July 2008 at 17:11

Those who state that God doesn't want women bishop's seem to me to have very little ground to stand on except their mysogynistic prejudices.

Jesus did not invent the role of bishop to give to the male Apostles, that was done by men in later years. Jesus often expressed approval of women and certainly never stated that they should be inferior to men, that was Paul.

God raised up female Judges for the people of Israel putting them in authority over men. Who are we to say that God was wrong?

Matey
10 July 2008 at 18:36

Irrespective of my views on women bishops, I too find Giles Fraser's article to be somewhat less than one would hope. It shows a lack of respect, love and desire for the dignity of others (surely key parts of the priestly role) and a clear disregard for factual information (which should be the hallmark of an academic). Please, Giles, could we have articles of higher quality in future?

Therese
11 July 2008 at 16:47

"The job description of bishops, he argued, was to feed the body of Christ. And yet, before the body of Christ became a metaphor for the people of God, it was a women that feed Christ’s physical body and looked after him. Here was the Biblical argument for women bishops. Indeed - on this argument - the very first bishop was a woman. It proved the vital speech."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Excellent point. Not only this, it was a woman who first mediated the actual Christ for humankind. Mary did not just feed the actual body of Christ -- through her role in the Incarnation, it was through her that the actual 'body' of Christ came into the world.

When a priest says, 'this is my body, this is my blood,' who better than a woman by the name of Mary (besides Jesus himself) can say those words.

Paul Hodges
11 July 2008 at 17:57

Hello,

For those Anglo-Catholics, who've been let down and betrayed, simply cannot envisage a future in the C of E or but do not feel drawn into swimming the Tiber, there is a Third Way.

I am one of thousands of ex-Anglicans who has made a very happy new home in the Orthodox Church. I am able to maintain my Christian Faith in a truly supportive, deeply spiritual environment, unhindered by the distractions of secularism.

It was initially hard to leave the church of my birth, but it is unequestionably the right decision for me and my family. The best thing we've ever done. I am in Love with Christ all over again!

The Antiochian Deanery is very welcoming, has a strong sense of Mission, its services are in English, and it has a truly international, multi-ethnic congregation - something we all could benefit from. My former C of E parish consisted mostly of white-Anglo-saxon ladies in their sixties, here my fellow worshippers are from the West Indies, Greece, Belarus, France, Syria, Rusia, the Ukraine, Rumania, Serbia, Armenia, the UK and elsewhere...and of all ages from babies upwards.

I apologise if this sounds like a recruitment drive, it's not meant too (honest!). I just know how much some of you are hurting at the moment and I sincerely wish to let you know of a way out into a whole new world, a way back to the One True Faith.

If you want more info, check out:

www.antiochian-orthodox.co.uk/

Or look up many of the conversion stories online.

Thanks for your time.

Yrs in XP,

Paul

Therese
12 July 2008 at 17:08

For information about the ordination of women deacons in the early Church, see here: http://www.womenpriests.org/deacons/default.asp

The ordination of women is historically documented.

By the way Paul, because of the schism in 1054, the practice of ordaining women continued on in the Orthodox Church and in some rites of it, continues on to this very day.

Therese
12 July 2008 at 17:12

Also see here about the work for the restoration of the ordained women's diaconate in the Greek Orthodox Church.

http://www.americamagazine.org/gettext.cfm?articleTypeID=1&t...

Respectfully speaking Paul, changing churches can't always help you run away from truth.

The hound of heaven will keep chasing!

Therese

Therese
12 July 2008 at 20:50

The Hound of Heaven

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;

I fled Him, down the arches of the years;

I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways

Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears

I hid from Him, and under running laughter.

Up vistaed hopes I sped;

And shot, precipitated,

Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,

From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.

But with unhurrying chase,

And unperturbèd pace,

Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

They beat -- and a voice beat

More instant than the Feet --

"All things betray thee, who betrayest Me."

radius
14 July 2008 at 16:50

A "deeply spiritual environment, unhindered by the distractions of secularism"? IMHO, secularism is a precondition for real spirituality, it is the delusion and suspension of disbelief that constitutes 'faith' which true seekers have to transcend. Not the reality of nature.

Sofia Thornborough-Smith
17 July 2008 at 14:43

Indeed the truth will out, Therese.

To someone with an Orthodox consciousness the Protestant idea of a female priesthood is amusing rather than shocking.

In the Orthodox Church where priests are married, women are deeply involved in church life, they have an honoured position - lacking in other Christian traditions.

In the Greek Orthodox church the words for the priest's wife and the deacon's wife are 'presbytera' and 'diaconissa', respectively.

For this reason there is no movement inside the Orthodox Church for a female priesthood or diaconate and never will be - it already exists.

STS

Therese
20 July 2008 at 15:13

STS,

No movement? Consider the following:

T he Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church of Greece voted in Athens on Oct. 8, 2004, to restore the female diaconate. All the members of the Holy Synod—125 metropolitans and bishops and Archbishop Christodoulos, the head of the church of Greece—had considered the topic. The decision does not directly affect the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, which is an eparchy of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. The Greek ecclesiastical provinces of the Ecumenical Patriarchate received their independence from Constantinople in 1850 and were proclaimed the Autocephalous Church of Greece.

While women deacons had virtually disappeared by the ninth century, the facts of their existence were well known, and discussion of the restoration of the female diaconate in Orthodoxy began in the latter half of the 20th century. Two books on the topic by Evangelos Theodorou, Heroines of Love: Deaconesses Through the Ages (1949) and The “Ordination” or “Appointment” of Deaconesses (1954), documented the sacramental ordination of women in the early church. His work was complemented in the Catholic Church by an article published by Cipriano Vagaggini, a Camaldolese monk, in Orientalia Christiana Periodica in 1974. The most significant scholarship on the topic agrees that women were sacramentally ordained to the diaconate, inside the iconostasis at the altar, by bishops in the early church. Women deacons received the diaconal stole and Communion at their ordinations, which shared the same Pentecostal quality as the ordination of a bishop, priest or male deacon.

Despite the decline of the order of deaconesses in the early Middle Ages, Orthodoxy never prohibited it. In 1907 a Russian Orthodox Church commission reported the presence of deaconesses in every Georgian parish; the popular 20th-century Orthodox saint Nektarios (1846-1920) ordained two women deacons in 1911; and up to the 1950’s a few Greek Orthodox nuns became monastic deaconesses. In 1986 Christodoulos, then metropolitan of Demetrias and now archbishop of Athens and all of Greece, ordained a woman deacon according to the “ritual of St. Nektarios”—the ancient Byzantine text St. Nektarios used.

Multiple inter-Orthodox conferences called for the restoration of the order, including the Interorthodox Symposium at Rhodes, Greece, in 1988, which plainly stated, “The apostolic order of deaconess should be revived.” The symposium noted that “the revival of this ancient order should be envisaged on the basis of the ancient prototypes testified to in many sources and with the prayers found in the Apostolic Constitutions and the ancient Byzantine liturgical books.”...

Read entire article, click here: http://www.americamagazine.org/gettext.cfm?articleTypeID=1&t...

I am a member of the Greek Catholic Church. We were one with the Greek Orthodox until 1596 -- Union of Brest-Litovsk -- when we reunited with Rome.

The movement for growth continues.

Therese

Therese
20 July 2008 at 15:15

Here is the rest of the article in case the link doesn't work:

At the Holy Synod meeting in Athens in 2004, Metropolitan Chrysostom of Chalkidos initiated discussion on the subject of the role of women in the Church of Greece and the rejuvenation of the order of female deacons. In the ensuing discussion, some older bishops apparently disagreed with the complete restoration of the order. Anthimos, bishop of Thessaloniki, later remarked to the Kathimerini English Daily, “As far as I know, the induction of women into the police and the army was a failure, and we want to return to this old matter?”

While the social-service aspect of the female diaconate is well known, the Holy Synod decided that women could be promoted to the diaconate only in remote monasteries and at the discretion of individual bishops. The limiting decision to restore only the monastic female diaconate did not please some synod members. The Athens News Agency reported that Chrysostomos, bishop of Peristeri, said, “The role of female deacons must be in society and not in the monasteries.” Other members of the Holy Synod agreed and stressed that the role of deaconesses should be social—for example, the conferring of last rites on the sick.

The vote of the Holy Synod to restore the female diaconate under limited circumstances may be the most progressive idea the Orthodox Church can bring to the world. The document does not use the word ordination, but specifically allows bishops to consecrate (kathosiosi) senior nuns in monasteries of their eparchies. But bishops who choose to promote women to the diaconate have only the ancient Byzantine liturgy that performs the same cheirotonia, laying on of hands, for deaconesses as in each major order: bishop, priest and deacon. Even so, some (mostly Western) scholars have argued that the historical ordination of women deacons was not a cheirotonia, or ordination to major orders, but a cheirothesia, a blessing that signifies installation to a minor order. The confusion is understandable, since the two terms were sometimes used interchangeably, but other scholars are equally convinced that women were ordained to the major order of the diaconate. The proof will be in the liturgy the bishops actually use. At present there is only one liturgy and one tradition by which to create a woman deacon in the Byzantine rite, and it is demonstrably a ritual of ordination for the “servant who is to be ordained to the office of a deaconess.”

Even the document on the diaconate issued by the Vatican’s International Theological Commission in 2002 admits that “Canon 15 of the Council of Chalcedon (451) seems to confirm the fact that deaconesses really were ‘ordained’ by the imposition of hands (cheirotonia).” Despite the pejorative use of quotation marks here and elsewhere in the document when historical ordinations of women deacons are mentioned, this Vatican commission seems unwilling to deny the history to which the Church of Greece has now newly returned. Further, the Vatican document points out that the practice of ordaining women deacons according to the Byzantine liturgy lasted at least into the eighth century. It does not review Orthodox practice after 1054.

The rejuvenation of the order of deaconess in the Church of Greece is expected to begin during the winter of 2004-5. The contemporary ordination (cheirotonia) of women provides even more evidence and support for the restoration of the female diaconate in the Catholic Church, which has acknowledged the validity of Orthodox sacraments and orders. Despite the distinction in Canon 1024—“A baptized male alone receives sacred ordination validly”—one can presume the possibility of a derogation from the law, as suggested by the Canon Law Society of America in 1995, to allow for diaconal ordination of women. (The history of Canon 1024 is clearly one of attempts to restrict women from priesthood, not from the diaconate.)

In fact, the Catholic Church has already indirectly acknowledged valid ordinations of women by the Armenian Apostolic Church, one of the churches of the East that ordains women deacons. There are two recent declarations of unity—agreements of mutual recognition of the validity of sacraments and of orders—between Rome and the Armenian Church, one signed by Paul VI and Catholicos Vasken I in 1970, another between John Paul II and Catholicos Karekin I in 1996.

These agreements are significant, for the Armenian Apostolic Church has retained the female diaconate into modern times. The Armenian Catholicossate of Cilicia has at least four ordained women. One, Sister Hrip’sime, who lives in Istanbul, is listed in the official church calendar published by the Armenian Patriarchate of Turkey as follows: “Mother Hrip’sime Proto-deacon Sasunian, born in Soghukoluk, Antioch, in 1928; became a nun in 1953; Proto-deacon in 1984; Mother Superior in 1998. Member of the Kalfayian Order.” Mother Hrip’sime has worked to restore the female diaconate as an active social ministry, and for many years was the general director of Bird’s Nest, a combined orphanage, school and social service center near Beiruit, Lebanon. Her diaconate, and that of the three other women deacons, is far from monastic.

The future Catholic response to the documented past and the changing present promises to be interesting. The tone of the International Theological Commission document reveals an attempt to rule out women deacons, but the question is left remarkably open: “It pertains to the ministry of discernment which the Lord established in his church to pronounce authoritatively on this question.”

It is becoming increasingly clear that despite the Catholic Church’s unwillingness to say yes to the restoration of the female diaconate as an ordained ministry of the Catholic Church, it cannot say no.

Prayer for the Ordination of a Woman Deacon

O Eternal God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Creator of man and of woman, who replenished with the Spirit Miriam, and Deborah, and Anna, and Huldah; who did not disdain that your only-begotten Son should be born of a woman; who also in the tabernacle of the testimony, and in the temple, did ordain women to be keepers of your holy gates—look down now upon this your servant who is to be ordained to the office of a deaconess, and grant her your Holy Spirit, that she may worthily discharge the work which is committed to her to your glory, and the praise of your Christ, with whom glory and adoration be to you and the Holy Spirit for ever. Amen.”

—Apostolic Constitutions, No. 8 (late fourth century)

Phyllis Zagano is adjunct associate professor of philosophy and religious studies at Hofstra University, Hempstead, N.Y., and author of Holy Saturday: An Argument for the Restoration of the Female Diaconate in the Catholic Church (Crossroad, 2000).

Costas
22 July 2008 at 19:25

This is not a movement. in the Orthodox Church There is no movement.

Women will never consecrate. Ever.

Greek Catholics = Uniates=No friends to Orthodox. Orthodox consider Uniates to be traitors and dogs.

Costas
22 July 2008 at 19:29

You misunderstand. This is a minor matter about revising the diakonia, not related to the liberal protestant arguments. There is no such movement. in the Orthodox Church, we don't think the same way as these Anglican protestants.

In the Orthodox Church Women & gays will never consecrate. Ever.

Greek Catholics = Uniates=No friends to Orthodox. Most Orthodox consider Uniates to be Papal lackeys, traitors and dogs.

Therese
25 July 2008 at 02:16

DEACONESSES

Saint Olympiada or Olympias, whose memory we celebrate on July 25, was a deaconess in the early church. The office of deaconess is described in the New Testament and Phoebe was called a deaconess in Romans 16: 1. This office is codified in the "Didascalia" written in the first half of the 3rd century and in the "Apostolic Constitutions" written in the later part of the 4th century. It is also mentioned at the 4th Ecumenical Council which met in Chalcedon in 451.

At first, only widows who had been married only once were admitted to the office. Later, virgins were also admitted. The age of admission varied through the years from 40-60 years of age. Once admitted they were not allowed to marry.

Deaconesses were ordained in the altar by a bishop by the imposition of hands. They were robed in a stichar and an orarion (deacon's stole). They were addressed as "reverend", "Most honorable" or "most pious". The episcopal prayers of ordination of a deaconess have not been revoked by the Orthodox Church and they can still be found in the books.

The deaconess had specific duties. Among them was to instruct privately female candidates for baptism, to assist at their baptism which was by total immersion, they did the anointing with oil at the baptism as it was not considered proper for the male clergy to touch a woman, they visited and cared for the sick, they were present at interviews of women with the bishops or priests, they dismissed women catechumens from the church and kept general order in the women's section of the church (men and women were segregated as they were up to about 25 years ago in our churches in America), and they did other duties delegated by the bishop like helping the poor. They were in a sense the educators of women in the faith and social workers. Deaconesses were ordained in the Eastern Church as late as the 12th century. The office was disused in the Western Church somewhat earlier.

Saint Olympiada born in 366 in Constantinople to the Senator Secunda was to become a deaconess.

At eighteen she married a prefect of the city. One of the gifts she received was a letter of advice written in verse to her by St. Gregory Nazianzius. Unfortunately she was widowed in less than two years. As she was an attractive, young, extremely wealthy widow, Emperor Theodosius tried to get her to marry his cousin, Elpida. Olympidia wrote the Emperor a letter in which she said: "If God willed me to live in a married state, He would not have taken my husband whom I dearly loved."

Theodosius was angered by her reply and took action against her. He named administrators to take charge of her immense wealth until she was thirty years old.

However, when she was 25, she was able to persuade the emperor to return control of her assets to her. She had begun to give her whole life to works of Christianity from the time of her widowhood. With the return of her money she increased her charitable giving. She gave to churches and monasteries, to homes for the homeless, to alleviate suffering in prisons, and to homes for exiles. Soon, she was besieged by requests and many took advantage of her kindnesses even some of those whom she had already helped. Saint John Chrysostom, who was impressed by her charity felt need to write to her highly instructive letters warning her to be more discriminating in her benefactions. These letters survive.

As for herself, she lived an austere lifestyle with other deaconesses. She renounced earthly pleasures and gave most of her time over to prayer and charitable works.

She had been ordained a deaconess earlier by the bishop of Constantinople. Among her other duties, he consulted her on matters concerning the church.

She served Saint John Chrysostom as she would a father and ultimately she was one of the few faithful who remained loyal to him when he endured his banishments from Constantinople. She had to endure severe persecutions starting with rumors and finally exile for supporting his cause and refusing to recognize the intruded successor to Saint John Chrysostom at the Cathedral. She was charged with conspiring to burn the cathedral, she was heavily fined and from that time matters became almost intolerable. the enemies of Saint John became her enemies. She didn't have anyone to turn to for advice, solace, or protection. Her properties and wealth were ultimately seized, she was robbed and everything she had left was confiscated.

Her last days were spent in a monastery which she had founded, but even here she did not escape harassment. She died in 408 at 42 years of age.

-Taken from the Orthodox Herald, Hunlock Creek, PA, July 1988, Vol. 37 No. 3 Issue 434 - Reprinted with permission

Therese
25 July 2008 at 06:27

World Council of Churches

News Release

Contact: +41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363

media@wcc-coe. org

For immediate release - June 26, 2008

ORTHODOX WOMEN: CHURCH PARTICIPATION IMPROVED BUT CONCERNS REMAIN

Over the last decade, Orthodox women reached significant milestones regarding their participation in church life, but many of their concerns have not yet been fully addressed, an international gathering of Orthodox women stated.

A long decade has past since the last inter-Orthodox women's consultation took place in Istanbul, Turkey in 1997. In the intervening years, the participation of Orthodox women in the life of the church has improved. Significant milestones range from the recognition of women's issues by church structures to women's participation in some church ministries and decision-making processes.

Many of the concerns of women, however, have not yet been fully addressed within the life of the church. A list of them includes: access to and funding for theological studies and subsequent employment opportunities within the church; supporting and equipping women for pastoral care and other church ministries; participation in church decision-making processes; taking a new look at prayers and practices associated with women's biology.

These were amongst the main findings of a five-day long consultation, which brought together some 45 women from Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Australia and North America. Meeting from 8-12 June in Volos, Greece, they discussed the participation, ministry and concerns of Orthodox women in the church and in the ecumenical movement.

Participants at the consultation recommended undertaking a full assessment of the current situation and needs of Orthodox women, given the many changes that have taken place over the last decade, as well as the development of a framework for future action. "We see the need to identify, together with our church leadership, the ways and instruments to implement decisions and recommendations of women's consultations in our churches", the participants stated in a report on the deliberations.

The consultation took place at the Volos Academy for Theological Studies and was sponsored by the World Council of Churches Programme for Women in Church and Society and hosted by the Diocese of Dimitrias.

Full text of the Report of the Inter-Orthodox Consultation

http://www.oikoumen e.org/index. php?id=6054

WCC Programme for Women in Church and Society

http://www.oikoumen e.org/en/ programmes/ the-wcc-and- the-ecumenical- movement- in-the-21st- century/women- in-church- and-society. html

Diocese of Dimitrias, Church of Greece (in Greek)

http://www.imd. gr/main/index. php

Volos Academy for Theological Studies (in Greek)

http://www.acadimia .gr/index. php?lang= el

Additional information: Juan Michel,+41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363 media@wcc-coe. org

The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 349 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 560 million Christians in over 110 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia, from the Methodist Church in Kenya. Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland

Therese
25 July 2008 at 06:31

Costos,

May the peace of Christ be with you!

1. "Women will never consecrate. Ever." -- an odd opinion given that God chose a woman to be the first mediator of Christ for the world, ie Virgin Mary (...no man involved!!)

2. "Greek Catholics = Uniates=No friends to Orthodox. Orthodox consider Uniates to be traitors and dogs."

Presuming you are Christian, this is an odd point of view. Aren't we all children of God?

3. "This is not a movement. in the Orthodox Church There is no movement. "

Better check again!

with love and blessings,

Therese

Alexia Bradstone
02 August 2008 at 12:38

Fraser's article is vicious, conceited and gleeful. Exactly what I'd expect from this loose cannon.

I'm a traditionalist XPian who, long ago, tired of the C of E's lesbianisation. I also converted to Orthodoxy. Many people will jump in many directions. But most Anglo-Catholics lack the knowledge to do anything other than submit to Rome. It's the Anglo-Cath divorcees I feel most sympathy for. Their priest's will encourage them to swim the Tiber but probably won't tell them that Rome considers divorcees to be undesirables, almost beyond the pale, and will DENY THEM THE EUCHARISTIC SACRAMENT- FOR LIFE!

Leave the rotten old Cof E to go to a Rome that reviles you? What a choice!

Orthodox have always been more humane. Love defeats Legalism.

Oh, and I feel so sorry for Therese. Such a sectariarn mind! She's so keen to make trouble exist where it doesn't. Please pray for her.

Alexia

Paul Hodges
03 August 2008 at 18:18

We should...not do anything rash....we must hold together while we plan for the future.

The Bishop Of Richborough

The Right Rev Andrew Burnham, the "flying" Bishop of Ebbsfleet, who looks after about 100 traditionalist parishes in the Canterbury province, visited the Vatican in April for talks about transferring with many of his parishes to Rome.

Ruth Gledhill

I wonder whether the current Catholic hierarchy in England & Wales will really accept these converts. Aren't these "Anglo-Catholics" too pre-Vatican II for the likes of Cormac, Crispian and Conrey?

Saint Mary Magdalen blog

'Will Rome take our Trads?'

I asked this question of an extremely well-connected Roman Catholic friend and this was his response: 'I honestly don't think Rome will. Last thing we need. Their position was untenable in the 19th century, became ridiculous in 1992, and is now quite simply grotesque.'

Hmm. Being in a Resolution A parish myself, I am more sympathetic to their plight, but fear that those who fantasise a Flaminian Gate-style welcome are deluding themselves. A number of leading supporters of women bishops can't wait for them to up sticks and go to Rome, but they also might be counting their blessings too soon. Rome, it seems to me, is unlikely to want them much if at all.

Ruth Gledhill

Vivienne Goddard (Blackburn) [told General Synod] that she had delivered a petition from 8941 lay women in the Church of England. They did not want to become Roman Catholics., and if they had wanted to they would have done so at the time of ordination of women to the priesthood.

Church Times

Paul Hodges
03 August 2008 at 18:32

Anglo-Catholics talk of the sacrosanct nature of Tradition, and yet they only have a partial understanding of the concept and apply it in an illogical manner: by slavishly aping Romish customs. By doing thus it seems to me that they are missing the point of both what Tradition really is and of Rome's attitude to it. Rome has always been an accumulator of dogma rather than a hoarder of Patristic purity- a church of innovation rather than of Tradition in any Orthodox understanding. In the twentieth century Rome underwent its own Reformation. Traditionalist Roman Catholics read Vat II not as a freshening up of Tradition but as its polar opposite, a thoroughly protestantizing endeavour. The present Roman Liturgy does little to enoble the faithful, is devoid of Tradition and beauty and wholly lacking in God's Grace. But the Anglo-Catholic attitude remains one of blind submission and grateful acceptance. It is Roman, ergo, it must be good, it must be right.

Prof Manuel Martinez.

Sofia Thornborough-Smith
04 August 2008 at 17:35

Here's another quote which Therese might like to ponder before she comments further on things she clearly does not fully understand. These words are from an insider - Rod Dreher, famed journalist and yet another convert to Orthodoxy (from RCism):

'the Orthodox convert (from RCism) Hugh O'Beirne says that Catholics new to the Orthodox Church may find it surprising that they don't have to be on a "war footing" -- meaning the culture wars don't intrude into worship. People are on the same page, and if they're not, they're not out trying to get the Church to change her position on abortion, gay marriage, inclusive language, and all that. As someone who more or less is on the front lines of the culture war every day in my job as a journalist, I found it a new and welcome experience to be able to go to church on Sunday and get built back up for the struggle ahead, instead of to find mass the most debilitating hour of the week. '

This is how it is inside the Orthodox Church. We worship in unity, without the squabbles and distractions that Therese is so excited by.

STS

Therese
06 August 2008 at 03:05

May the peace of Christ be with you!

Some more informative material from me, of 'sectarian' mind:

Historical records confirm that the diaconate of women flourished for many centuries, especially in Greece, Syria and throughout Byzantium. The practice has been documented extensively especially in the eastern part of the Church (ie, yours!).

For a wonderful academically reliable and spiritually profound book which provides many data on the history of women deacons and discusses the issue of their sacramental ordination, see here: http://www.womenpriests.org/theology/kyriaki.asp Written by Dr. Kiriaki Karidoyanes FitzGerald, it is from an Orthodox point of view, since she herself is Orthodox. It is the best book on women deacons we have seen. It is available from Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 50 Goddard Avenue, Brookline, MA 02445, USA.

Ordained women deacons in historical records: Women Deacons in Historical Records: http://www.womenpriests.org/traditio/deac_rec.asp

For a copy of a Greek ordination manuscript, see here: http://www.womenpriests.org/traditio/deac_gr1.asp

For an analysis of the ordination rite, see here: http://www.womenpriests.org/traditio/deac_ord.asp

International Church Councils such as Chalcedon, Trullo, and Nicaea endorsed the ordination of women deacons. See here: http://www.womenpriests.org/traditio/deac_cls.asp

Dr. Kiriaki Karidoyanes FitzGerald also provides a list of ordained women deacons who have now been named saints, see here: http://www.womenpriests.org/deacons/deac_sts.asp

Women deacons assisted in the baptism of women which required the annointing and immersion of the whole body. See here: http://www.womenpriests.org/traditio/deac_bap.asp

If women were ordained to Holy Orders as deacons, there is no reason they cannot be ordained as priests and bishops.

The first priest of Christ was Mary. See your icon of the presentation of Theotokos in the Temple...into the Holy of Holies where only the High Priest went once a year on the most sacred day of the year...the Day of Atonement.

Remember the words of Gamaliel. Fight against them and you may find yourself fighting against God.

oremus pro invicem,

Therese

Therese
06 August 2008 at 03:09

from St. Nina's Quarterly, an Orthodox academic journal:

Ordained Women - Deaconesses6

Deaconesses in the Early Church

The structure

of the ordination

of the deaconess

is virtually identical

to that of the deacon. There are two mentions of deaconesses in the New Testament. The first is in the Apostle Paul's letter to the Romans, where he entrusts to them the deaconess Phoebe. The second is in the third chapter of I Timothy. In the section dealing with the qualifications of deacons, the epistle writer inserts that "[the] women likewise must be serious, not slanderers, but temperate, faithful in all things (I Tim. 3:11 NRSV)." Early church documents use the same Greek word, diakonos, for both male and female deacons, differentiating between them only by the use of the masculine or feminine definite article.

As the Church developed in the second and third centuries, so too did the institution of the female diaconate, but its specific duties and ranking vary geographically. From the Middle East, we have two Syrian documents which elaborate on both the ordination of deaconesses and their pastoral and liturgical duties. These are the Teaching of the Apostles (Didascalia Apostolorum), which dates to the early third century, and the Apostolic Constitutions,7 a fourth-century church order which is heavily dependent on the earlier Didascalia. In the Apostolic Constitutions, the ordinations for upper and lower clergy are given; that of the deaconess is virtually identical to that of the deacons and presbyters. As for priests and deacons, the bishop is to lay hands on the woman to be ordained deaconess "in the presence of the presbytery and of the deacons and deaconesses", and to ordain her with a prayer corresponding to her female ministry (it mentions women of the Old Testament who were filled with the Spirit and served the Temple, and alludes to the Theotokos).

Because of its reference to her being "in the presence of the presbytery and of the deacons and deaconesses" the Apostolic Constitutions implies that the deaconess's ordination occurred within the altar area, which normally is reserved only for ordination to the higher clergy (priesthood and diaconate).

Both the Teaching of the Apostles and the Apostolic Constitutions set out the pastoral and liturgical duties of the deaconess. The deaconesses had a ministry which corresponded in some ways to those of the deacons, but specifically for women.

Deaconesses in the Byzantine Church

In the Byzantine Church, the structure of the ordination of the deaconess is virtually identical to that of the deacon; the only differences are that she does not kneel, she is not given a fan to fan the Holy Gifts, and that the way she wears the orarion (the deacon's stole) is different from the deacon's.

What is noteworthy, however, is that she is ordained during the liturgy after the completion of the anaphora (which is when the deacon is also ordained) and, significantly, she is ordained in the altar area. She receives communion in the altar at the end of the line of clergy, after which the bishop gives her the chalice, which she then returns to the altar. It is clear that the ordination of the deaconess is modeled on that of the deacon. This is important because several modern scholars, both Orthodox and Catholic, are attempting to assert - despite this evidence - that women were never ordained into, the clergy, and especially not into the higher clergy.8 [A fuller examination of the pastoral and liturgical duties of the female deacon is planned for future issues. Click here for an article on "Orthodox Women and Pastoral Praxis" which examines the female diaconate further.]

Where to Go from Here?

Knowing this short history of women's liturgical participation in the Churches of the East, the question remains: What do we do now? There are several directions in which we can, and need, to move. The first is education. People need to know that the early church gave women broad liturgical participation. As you now know, the Byzantine rite of ordination for the deaconess clearly occurs within the sanctuary, and the deaconess is even given the chalice by the bishop.

Education is vitally important so that our people can understand what the true theology of the Church is, and not make absolute the accretions and ideas of Old Testament ritual impurity that have crept in over time and become enshrined in the teachings of our grandmothers. Religious education is also an area where women are very strong in most of our parishes. What we need to do now is to educate the educators. Women theologians are still relatively few in number, but we are growing. Although we sometimes face discrimination and impediments, we continue in the tradition of St. Macrina, whom her brother St. Gregory of Nyssa called the "true philosopher", or, as we would say today, the "true theologian".

But women also have pastoral roles to play today. Women serve as lay assistants in some Orthodox parishes, and I know several who are chaplains serving in prisons, hospitals, and hospices. Their ministry is far more pastoral than sacramental in nature, and they work well with local priests to fill the sacramental needs of their patients. Women chaplains, too, face difficulties and obstacles, but they are convinced of their calling and strengthened by the Holy Spirit. Lay assistants and chaplains are the modern-day equivalent of deacons and deaconesses. What better path could we take than to reinstitute the historical order of deaconesses, at the same time revitalizing it for our modern needs by expanding it to married and younger women outside the monastic life.

The most important priority, therefore, is to encourage women to fulfill their spiritual calling in every way possible, which historically has included virtually every area of life the Church has to offer teaching, preaching, pastoral work, and liturgical functions. If women had such a diversity of active ministries in a time when women's societal roles were limited, what might we do in the Church of Christ in the 21st century?

Notes.

1. For an overview of various women’s ministries in the early Church, including not only prophetesses, but also widows and deaconesses, see Robert Gryson, The Ministry of Women in the Early Church, trans. Jean Laporte and Mary Louise Hall (Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 1976).

2. See Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of St. Macrina, trans., intro. and notes Kevin Comgan (Toronto: Peregrina, 1989).

3. See, e.g., Eva Catafygiotou-Topping, "Women Hymnographers in Byzantium," Diptixa 3 (Athens, 1982-1983), esp. 107-110.

4. For a study of the order of widows in the early Church, see Bonnie Bowman Thurston, The Widows (Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 1989).

5. Ibid., p. 112 (Canon 9 of the Canons of Hippolytus).

6. Some studies dealing with deaconesses include Jean Danielou, The Ministry of Women in the Early Church, trans. Glyn Simon (London: The Faith Press, 1961) (French original appeared in La maison-Dieu 61:1 (1960), 70-96); J. G. Davies, "Deacons, Deaconesses, and the Minor Orders in the Patristic Period," Journal of Ecclesiastical History 14 (1963), 1-15; C. R Meyer, "Ordained Women in the early Church," Chicago Studies 4:3 (1965), 285-308; Aimé Georges Martimort, Deaconesses: An Historical Study, trans. K D. Whitehead (San Francisco: lgnatius Press, 1986); Evangelos Theodorou, "The Institution of the Deaconesses in the Orthodox Church and the Possibility of Its Restoration," in Gennadios Limouris, ed., The Place of the Woman in the Orthodox Church and the Question of the Ordination of Women (Katerini, Greece: Tertios Publications, 1992), pp. 207-238; J. Viteau, "La institution des diacres et des Veuves," Revue d'Histoire Ecclesiastique 22 (1929), 513-537.

7. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson with Cleveland Coxe, eds., Fathers of the Third and Fourth Centuries, "Ante-Nicene Fathers," vol. 7, reprint ed. (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 1994), pp. 385-505.

8. Martimort, op. cit., pp. 152-156; Vlassios Pheidas, "The Question of the Priesthood of Women," in Gennadios Limouris, ed., The Place of the Woman in the Orthodox Church, op. cit., pp. 186-189.

http://www.stnina.org/journal/art/1.1.3

may the peace of Christ be with you!

Therese
06 August 2008 at 03:10

Persons in Communion: A Theology of Authentic Relationships

Kyriaki Karidoyanes FitzGerald

Theologian and psychologist Kyriaki FitzGerald explores the implications of Eastern Orthodox Trinitarian theology for human relationships. Drawing on the wisdomof the Church Fathers and her years of clinical experience as a therapist, she both explains the teachings of the Orthodox Church for a contemporary audience and presents a way for the reader to look deeply into his or her life and relationships so that they might be transformed.

The second part of the book presents the contemporary discussion on the role of women in the Orthodox Church, including the restoration of the order of women deacons. Here, she connects the ministries of women to the authenticity of relationships that women (and men) have and are called to have with the living God in the life of the Church.

Kyriaki Karidoyanes FitzGerald, M.Div., Ph.D. is an Orthodox theologian, author and licensed psychologist. Her publications include Women Deacons in the Orthodox Church: Called to Holiness and Mininstry, Orthodox Women Speak: Discerning the "Signs of the Times' (ed.), Encountering Women of Faith:St. Catherine's Vision Collection vol.1 (ed.), Living the Beatitudes:Perspectives From Orthodox Spirituality (co-authored with her husband, Rev. Dr. Thomas FitzGerald). Dr. FitzGerald is the Founder and Coordinator of St.Catherine's Vision (www.orthodoxwomen.org), a working group of persons committed to studying and supporting the many ways women and men are called to serve within the life of the Church, today.

Therese
06 August 2008 at 03:44

Did the woman say,

When she held him for the first time in the dark of a stable,

After the pain and the bleeding and the crying,

‘This is my body, this is my blood’?

Did the woman say,

When she held him for the last time in the dark rain on a hilltop,

After the pain and the bleeding and the dying,

‘This is my body, this is my blood’?

Well that she said it to him then,

For dry old men,

brocaded robes belying barrenness

Ordain that she not say it for him now.

-Frances Croake Frank

God breaches man's taboo.

Therese
07 August 2008 at 20:24

Not everything that exists in the Church must for that reason be also a legitimate tradition; in other words, not every tradition that arises in the Church is a true celebration and keeping present of the mystery of Christ. There is a distorting, as well as a legitimate, tradition.... Consequently, tradition must not be considered only affirmatively, but also critically.

Therese
07 August 2008 at 20:26

"A custom without Truth is merely an ancient error."

Saint Cyprian of Carthage

Therese
07 August 2008 at 20:31

STS,

Greetings in the peace of Christ. When you say:

"This is how it is inside the Orthodox Church. We worship in unity, without the squabbles and distractions that Therese is so excited by."

do you mean that if for instance a Nazi were at the helm, you would continue to follow and worship in unity without distraction? and that you would raise no question? preferring 'unity' even if it were in support of Naziism to 'asking questions?"

Does not true faith seek understanding?

Did Saint Cyrprian not say, " A custom without Truth is merely an ancient error?"

Did the Syro-Phonecian/Canaanite woman not respectfully challenge Jesus Christ and convince to 'expand' his comprehension of ministry?

with prayer and blessings,

Therese

Therese
08 August 2008 at 20:04

Lives of Saints

St. Nino and the Role of Women in the Evangelization of the Georgians

St. Nino

Paul Crego

This article was published in the St. Nina Quarterly, Volume 3, No. 1.

O handmaid of the Word of God, who in preaching equaled the first-called Apostle Andrew, and imitated the other Apostles, enlightener of Iberia and reed pipe of the Holy Spirit, holy Nina, equal to the Apostles, pray to Christ God to save our souls. - Troparion

The story of St. Nino [the Georgian form of Nina], Equal to the Apostles and Illuminator of the Georgians, has had an interesting history. St. Nino appears (although unnamed) in Greek and Latin ecclesiastical histories, beginning with Rufinus and later in Armenian and Georgian sources. The Armenian and Georgian sources are not easily dated, and theories about the dating are often much colored by nationalist perspectives.

The most elaborate telling of St. Nino’s story is in Georgian and was fully developed by the tenth century. Some of the emphasis of her story is in reaction to the schism of the Georgian Church from the Armenians at the Third Council of Dwin in the early seventh century. Before that time, the Georgians and Armenians had been united in their rejection of the Council of Chalcedon. After this council the Georgians tended to promote a separate origin for their Christianity, one that largely bypassed the Armenians.

One of the most interesting aspects of the Nino cycle is that women play an especially important role throughout it. Nino is tutored by an Armenian woman named Sara the Hermit; she baptizes a group of women in Armenia who are about to be martyred (including the well-known Hripsime); she gathers a number of women disciples in Mcxeta (the former capital of Georgia); she baptizes the royal family (even after Greek priests were to have been sent by Helena and Constantine); and some parts of the story itself are attributed to women authors.

Unfortunately, the retelling of the Nino story, in Georgian as well as in Russian and English translations, often leaves out the parts in which Nino baptizes. It is perhaps too difficult for later translators and paraphrasers to deal with such "anomalous" activity on the part of a woman. It is my theory that this part of the story must be quite old, since it is unlikely that Georgian clerics in the eighth to tenth centuries would have constructed such an active role for a woman missionary.

The text of the Nino story is self-conscious about her role and the fact that she is a woman. On her journey to Mcxeta she received a scroll from an angel in a vision, and on this scroll were ten lines, mainly from the New Testament. The second line is from Galatians 3:28: "There is neither male nor female, but you all are one." The ninth is from John 20:17: "Jesus said to Mary Magdalene, ‘Go, woman and tell my brothers.’" The seventh is the most curious: "The Lord loved Mary very much, because she listened to His true wisdom." With the exception of the tenth citation based on the Great Commission, this seventh line is the only one that does not appear to be a direct quote from the New Testament and is reminiscent of passages in some apocryphal writings, like the Gospel of Philip.

When Nino was ready to leave her tutor, Sara, in Jerusalem, Sara gave her the following "pep-talk": "I see your strength, my child, as the strength of the lioness, who roars louder than any other four-footed creature, or as the strength of the female eagle, who, rising to the heights of the atmosphere above the male, and perceiving the entire Earth before her as a small pearl, focuses on and sees her prey, cuts back her wings and swoops down upon it - so I see your life as led by the Holy Spirit." This extraordinary speech is also usually omitted in retellings and translations and has generally escaped the notice of commentators. This speech is in bold contrast to much early hagiography in which women must "become men" in order to attain spiritual virtue. In this passage, a certain superiority for women, based on nature, was assumed.

St. Nino’s story merits more attention than it has been given by Church historians. The role of women must be considered for what it may say specifically about the early Georgian Church and more generally, about attitudes concerning the role of women in the Church in the fourth through eighth centuries.

Sources.

1. Basic text (in Georgian) of the Nino cycle, eds. B. Gigineishvili and El. Giunashvili: The Shatberdi Collection of the Tenth Century, (Tbilisi: Mecniereba, 1979).

2. Most complete English translation: Margery Wardrop, trans. "The Life of St. Nino," in Studia Biblica et Ecclesiastica, vol. 5: 1-88 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1903).

3. Abridged English version: The Life of St. Nina Equal to the Apostles and Englightener of Georgia (Jordanville, N.Y.: Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Monastery, 1977).

4. K. Kekelidze, Die Bekehrung Georgiens zum Christentum (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrich, 1928).

5. Recently completed Ph.D. diss. at the University of Michigan: Stephen H. Rapp, Jr. Imagining History at the Crossroads: Persia, Byzantium, and the Architects of the Written Georgian Past.

Paul Crego received his M.A. in the Soviet Union Program (Harvard), his M.Div. at Harvard Divinity School, and his Ph.D. at Boston College (BC). He began his study of Georgian in 1977 and studied in Tbilisi in summer 1990 at the First Summer School in Kartvelian Studies. He taught History of the Orthodox Churches at BC in 1990, 1991. Mr. Crego has worked as a cataloguer of Georgian and Armenian at Harvard’s Widener Library and now works as a cataloguer of Armenian at the Library of Congress.

Therese
09 August 2008 at 01:44

Women routinely received the diaconate ordination in the Eastern part of the Church until about the 10th century. The ordination rite, which is still contained in the official pontifical ritual, the so-called euchologia, has never been withdrawn. As Bishop Kallistos Ware has pointed out: “It has just slided into disuse.” Click here for information that is specific to Orthodox Churches:

http://www.womenpriests.org/related/orthodox.asp

Costas
10 August 2008 at 20:14

Therese, this subject is obsessing you and getting dull and going nowhere. For all your obsessive verbiage and quote-ophilia you are missing an essential point: Women Deacons (Orthodox version, as opposed to Prot / Cath version which you may be more familiar with) are not the same as (Orthodox) Priests! You do not seem to grasp this very simple point! Most Orthodox are aware that for eg. the Copts (non-Chalcedonian/Oriental Orthodox) have reinstated the female Diaconate. So what???

The female Diaconate has no bearing on the question of Priesting.

It seems patently obvious that no heterodox consecration of the bread/wine has ever- or will ever -will ever be endorsed by the Orthodox. That is the whole point of the Orthodox Church- a collegiate body safeguarding the True and Right Way to Worship. If it's heterodox then it may be Protestant (Anglican, etc.), or Catholic (Uniate, etc.) or worse but it will not be Orthodox! It's that simple! (The clue is in the name- Orthodox!)

A call here and a call there from liberals and heretics does not a movement make.

Consecrations of the Holy Gifts by women or homosexuals or non-orthodox (+ heretics) have never and will never be acceptable to Orthodox. Never.