“What men deem good is good!!”
1. Introduction
The problem of the ordination of woman was not a doctrinal problem nor a theological one but an intellectual one. For while relics of saints (martyresses/martyrs) are placed to consecrate the table of the Church upon which the divine sacrifice is offered, her ordination to the clerical ranks is forbidden. Everything said about impediments is nothing but religious justifications only to justify her exclusion, not only from the priesthood but from ecclesiastical service as a whole. This can easily be deduced from following the thought and the institutional work of the Church. Saint Gregory the Theologian said that “men are the legislators of laws against woman”. For when woman began — after Christ renewed human nature — the service of the diaconate and was ordained by the laying on of the bishop’s hand like the deacon, laws and legislations began to follow one another to distance her, until we reached her exclusion from entering the Church entirely during the period of menstruation[1].
2. The Beginning and the Change
What many forget is that the service of the bishop did not arise as it is today, but arose as seeds — it was the service of tables — then developed over centuries until it took its current form, and this is the third after the prophets and the teachers. While the rank of priest, unmentioned in the Gospel, was established and was not permitted at the beginning to consecrate the offerings, then developed alongside the rank of bishop, the diaconate of woman was excluded and not permitted to develop fully. The married man was excluded from the episcopate, contrary to what the Apostle Paul asked, and was almost excluded from the priesthood when they deemed “that bishops, priests and deacons should not be ordained except those who separated from their wives”, were it not for the opposition of the elder Paphnutius[2]. So if the case is thus with the married man, how is it with woman? Especially with the influence of Jewish thought on Christian life and worship[3] .
For example, Jacob of Edessa says “she also had the right to take the mysteries from the niche in the absence of any priest or deacon and to give them to women and children. And in the case there was an adult woman ready for baptism, the (deaconess) would anoint her with the myron just as she used to anoint with the anointing of the sick the ailing (women)”[4]. The deaconess was ordained by the laying on of the bishop’s hand[5] and censed the altar and anointed women at baptism, and let us not forget that baptism was part of the Liturgy (the Divine Liturgy) at that time. Some affirm that she received the degree of the priesthood (χειροτονια) and not only χειροθεία)) )[6]. But instead of the service developing like the rest of the services, the process of exclusion began, especially with the beginning of the selection of bishops from among monks in the third century. The unity of the Christian mission was shattered, and an unnatural separation began to take place between the monks, the elite of the converts, and the common people, including the clergy[7].
3. The Influence of Thought on the Exclusion
A harsh thought arose at that time toward woman. Tertullian, for example, says “woman is the gate of hell”[8], and Saint Clement of Alexandria says: if woman contemplated her nature, she would feel scandal” She was often described in monastic literature as “the devil”[9] while the Apostolic Teachings (which mention her ordination) described her: “let the deaconess be among you like the Holy Spirit”[10]. The difference here is terrible. Monastic literature holds “that chastity and conversing with a woman is like a lioness and a lamb in one house”[11] . Saint Anthony recommends “let no woman approach you nor let her enter your place”, and the question that Metropolitan Saba Esber raised in his article “Where To?” “what is the psychological effect of the presence of the two sexes together around the holy table? [12] It is the question raised by bishops of monastic background, and its answer was: (the exclusion of woman). But I ask by the same logic of thinking: what is the psychological effect of the presence of the two sexes (a celibate bishop/priest with a woman) together in confession, the two of them alone? And does this not mean that we are in dire and necessary need of a woman in the clerical ranks to attend to women and confession?
This brings us to the conclusion that the non-ordination of woman is because of the manner of thinking and not from a doctrinal or theological basis. This may explain what Valerie Karras[13] says: “the service of the deaconess continued to exist at least in the capital and in some female monastic communities”, and the absence of the service in other regions is because of the thought that prevailed. Then she was gradually excluded through other canons, for example in the Council of Laodicea: “there is no room for there to be female elders and female presidents in the Church”. Then Percival says something of the utmost importance: “the Second Council of Orange (in its canons 17 and 18) commanded the necessity of refraining from ordaining any woman in the future because of human weakness”[14]. (What Percival said is a very important key to understanding.)
Then in the ninth century we reached the following canon of Saint Dionysius: ” it is not (only) forbidden for women in their menstruation to approach the holy table and partake of the holy Body of Christ and His precious Blood, but they are not permitted to enter the church. As for the duty of offering prayers, they perform it in another place (other than the church)”. Balsamon comments, saying: the question was, is it permitted to forbid Christian women from entering the church in accordance with the law of Moses …? The answer came as in the canon”[15]. And this is the prevailing thought to this day.
This is entirely contrary to the New Testament with Jesus. After Christ liberated woman by His blood on the cross, we returned and bound her; and while she was ordained by the laying on of the bishop’s hand and censed the altar, we put her outside the church, as if all the effects of Christ’s resurrection were abolished with time. Christian thought changed and religious impurities entered it, influenced by the surrounding religions. Metropolitan Paul Yazigi says “historical circumstances changed after the fifth century, and the patriarchal society increased in presence, especially after the appearance of Islam”[16]. So instead of contributing to the liberation of woman, we drowned in the influence of the other religions.
4. Some of the Arguments in Justifying the Exclusion
The archimandrite Gregory Stephan, doctor of doctrine, affirms the exclusion of woman, saying: “woman was excluded from the priesthood, but she was not excluded from ecclesiastical service” Then he brings out two reasons, saying the following: the first: “the ordination of woman as priest does not agree with the whole sacred tradition, including the teaching of the Holy Scripture”. And the second reason he mentions in his book: “he considers the ordination of woman a theological deviation through its contradicting what the apostolic canons called”[17]. If we suppose, for the sake of argument, the validity of this talk, why was woman excluded from the diaconate in the Church? Does the existence of deaconesses contradict the Gospel and the apostolic teachings that defined how the deaconess is ordained? Does not the election of unmarried bishops from among monks constitute a theological deviation through its contradicting the Holy Scripture — in what the Apostle Paul commands: “a bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife” (1 Tim 3:2) — and Christ’s choice, from among His disciples, of married men such as Peter?
The book “Yes or No to the Priesthood of Woman” summarizes the entire history of masculine thought toward woman, looking at her with the eyes of society, not with the eyes of Christ nor through His mind. It says “woman in the lustful age existing today is merely a body that attracts glances and calls those who look at it, and through it, to consumption. Woman has become a commodity in the market of desire… and consequently has become a thing in today’s society, without realizing it. She has become the window through which the world looks out upon sex; nay, she has become the frame of sex and the embodiment of the sexual act”[18]. And I ask: with whom is the sexual act embodied, is it not with the man? … Then it says “there is woman’s subjugation and her reality and her possibilities that do not allow her to demand her priesthood” By the same logic of his talk, there is injustice, sexual deviance and rape committed by man, exploitation of woman and authority, and violation of human rights, and the schisms in the Church whose cause is man, [which] do not allow him to remain in the priesthood. Does this logic hold? On the other hand, this talk is in truth a condemnation of us as the community of Jesus in every sense of the word, because it means that the ecclesiastical institution did not liberate woman but contributed to her exclusion, keeping her in her oppression, and indeed contributed powerfully to returning her to the bonds of the Old Testament instead of liberating her and giving her the dignity that Jesus bestowed upon her with His precious blood and poured His Spirit upon her as upon the man.
Conclusion
The disappearance of woman’s role was not an incidental disappearance, nor was it for a doctrinal or theological reason, but because of a thought that spread and prevailed in the Church and remains to this day. Adnan Traboulsi answers about the true reason, saying for example “after 2000 years of Christ, Orthodox men do not deem the priesthood of women good, and the Orthodox do not deem good woman’s moving about like man, and her masculinization[19]”. His talk is true, because, unfortunately, the good is what men deem good and the ugly is what men deem ugly, not what Christ deemed good and ugly. The whole matter is preference and desire, not doctrine and theology.
Even the role of the laity as a whole was excluded from ecclesiastical and synodal administration, and the service of the female diaconate was not allowed to develop like the rest of the ranks, and the unwillingness for woman to enter the ecclesiastical institution today through the diaconate, because the men in it are comfortable with the state of the religious institution in this form and with their own position in it. For woman’s entry means fundamental changes in pastoral care, work, thinking and logic, and the entry of a true partner in ecclesiastical work and a new feminine thought, which will certainly breathe life into the body of this dead institution.
References:
[1]Article by Father Lazarus Abboud, The Purity of Woman and Man: Questions before Priestly Service, link https://2u.pw/lNnmouRR
[2]Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History, Arabized by Dr. Father Pola Saweirus, The First Church Historians series (2), p. 93
[3] Metropolitan Paul Yazigi, The Pentecost of Modernization: The Balm of the Wounded Age, Aleppo-2008, p. 221
[4] The monk Fadi Abdel Ahad, The Woman Deaconess in the Syriac Orthodox Church — A Historical Study, Syriac Studies Department, link https://2u.pw/Ffj2uOn3
[5] The Apostolic Constitutions, Arabized by Father George Nsour, The Oldest Christian Texts, Liturgical Texts series (6), Kaslik 2006, p. 397
[6] Article: FEMALE DIACONATE IN THE ORIENTAL CHURCHES IN THE PAST AND TODAY By Christine Chaillot, https://2u.pw/0YselIQO
[7] Father Georges Florovsky, The Holy Scripture, the Church and Tradition (an Orthodox viewpoint), translated into Arabic by Father Michel Najm, An-Nour Publications, p. 88
[8] Women’s Gifts and the Diaconate, by Carrie Frederick Frost / March 6, 2018, https://2u.pw/nFGjWsRk
[9] The Garden of the Monks, on the Fathers of the Coptic Orthodox Church, St. Mina Library, second edition, 1956, p. 285
[10] The Apostolic Constitutions, Arabized by Father George Nsour, The Oldest Christian Texts, Liturgical Texts series (6), Kaslik 2006, p. 79.
[11] The Garden of the Monks, same reference, p. 303
[12] Metropolitan Saba Esber, article “Where To?”, published on his personal page dated 14/5/2024, link https://2u.pw/EAmGlv5D
[13] Female Deacons in the Byzantine Church (endnote) by Valerie A. Karras, link https://2u.pw/ADyJTbHF
[14] The Collection of Ecclesiastical Law or the Canons of the Universal Christian Church, collected, translated and arranged by Archimandrite Hanania Kassab, An-Nour Publications, 1998, p. 94.
[15] Ecclesiastical Law, same reference, p. 874
[16]Metropolitan Paul Yazigi, The Pentecost of Modernization: The Balm of the Wounded Age, Aleppo 2008, p. 221.
[17] The Monk Gregory Stephan, The Mystery of the Priesthood, the Mystery of the Sanctification of the Priest, the Church and the World, Monastery of St. Michael, Nahr Baskinta, 2012, p. 301
[18] Father Munif al-Homsi, The Book Yes or No to the Priesthood of Woman, Orthodox Online website, https://2u.pw/r7SGG8He
[19] Adnan Traboulsi, The Book “You Asked Me and I Answered You”, a group of authors, Dakkash Press, Amchit, fourth edition, 2010, p. 250