Women's Ordination?
Frederica Mathewes-Green answers a unique question on female priests
Frederica Mathewes-Green:
“I received an email the other day asking whether women might be ordained as priests in the Orthodox Church. The basis of the argument was a new one, to me: If God is beyond gender, and our souls are too, can the Church move beyond gendered roles, especially in the clergy?
“My reply was:
“Dear S,
“No, that wouldn't be possible in Orthodoxy (ordination of women as priests). The missing piece is that we live in bodies. Everything humans do is done in a human body. When God made us in his image (as Chrysostom says), he "wisely divided the one into two...They are, as it were, two halves." This is our reality, when we live on earth, that there are two kinds of human bodies, and they can't replace each other in the generation of new human life. The image of God is beyond male and female, but an individual man or woman is not beyond male and female. We aren't pure spirits, but live in flesh-and-blood bodies, which humbles us in a salutary way every day.
“The next thing to grapple with is the ancient wisdom of the Church. Of course there are many other churches that do allow women pastors, and even priests. But in Orthodoxy we inherit an untroubled history of nearly 2000 years, in which the Holy Spirit never did stir people up to desire women priests. It just never came up. Which suggests there is something about an all-male priesthood that made eminent sense to generation after generation after generation, in cultures of all different kinds, all over the earth. We can't see the logic that they effortlessly saw, but we can see them, and that gives us pause.
“Why should we let their perspective take priority over ours today? Because they lived in closer contact with the earth and its rhythms than we do. A child who grows up with livestock in the backyard (as most did, for most of history) gets a clear practical knowledge of mammalian reproduction. The goodness of male-and-female division, the fact that it literally produces new life, was part of their everyday reality. And to those countless generations, an all-male priesthood made sense. It was impossible for them not to see the logic of it.
“We today (I include myself) don't grasp that logic instinctively; we are tempted to etherealize things, not grasping what was obvious to our predecessors. But the world they lived in, like the world of the Scriptures itself, is deeply rooted in material reality, one that all humans inhabited for many thousands of years. If it doesn't make immediate sense to us, we can at least (and I try to do this) keep in mind that we are probably not perceiving the whole picture.”
(Fr Mark note: I always like, and I am edified by, Frederica Matthews Green’s writings, and her reasonings. I thought this was a unique answer to a unique question about women's ordination. If I had been asked the same question, I would've simply left it that the question is ignorant. I don't mean that as a put down, I mean, literally does not know what it's talking about. Because our souls are not beyond gender. So the presumption in the question is false. Our very souls are male and female. As Father Hopko always said, our soul informs our body, not vice versa. The reason we have male or female parts is because our soul is created male or female. The soul is supposed to inform the body. That's why hedonism today has it backwards: our bodies and their passions and emotions, and so forth, are controlling our souls. This is why we need the fruit of the Spirit of self control —the most important thing that we are supposed to learn as teenagers, when our passions are at their peak. The number one task of adolescence is learning self-control. But the point is the question assumes our souls are beyond gender, and that is incorrect. Male and female is not only our reality when we live on earth, it is who we are, and lasts for all eternity.)
https://substack.com/inbox/post/167375826
