Is the male-only priesthood a discipline or essential to the nature of being a priest? Sr. Vassa (again unflinchingly taking up a contentious topic by climbing up the ladder to the highest platform and then jumping into the deep end head first) dives right in and says there is no reason beyond personal preference to not have female clergy. You know, when people ask me about women in priesthood, they say, 'Sister, why can't women be priests?' And I say, 'Women CAN be priests. We don't WANT them to be priests.' Because you see, God can do anything, and the Church, by divine authority, uh, can do anything, but, the Church doesn't want to - and that's a legitimate reason. What I don't like is when we TRY to pretend that there are other reasons for this, because it's legitimate not to want something, and there are reasons not to want this - right? - but, we shouldn't pretent that there's some... reason, that, for example, the maleness...
One must be careful, when posting "stories" that appear on Ukrainian or Russian news services without a proper understanding of their immediate context, especially now that Ukraine is approaching its first presidential election (25 October 2009) since the Orange Revolution in 2004.
ReplyDeleteThe Kyivan Partiarchate has posted its own version of the event ( http://www.cerkva.info/2009/04/18/hram_Beeve.html ), claiming that the benefactor of the Church of the Transfiguration, Ivan Salo, bequeathed it to the Kyvian Patriarchate. There was no seizing of church property, nor desecration; moreover, the civil authorities were not called in to intervene.
One must keep in mind that the Sumy Region of Ukraine is from where President Yushchenko hails. Yushchenko has been a strong supporter of the Kyivan Patriarchate and the idea of a Ukrainian Orthodox Church, independent of Moscow.
Hence, it is no surprise that the Sumy Bishop of the Moscow Patriarchate, Jevlohij, wrote to President Yushchenko the following: "Today, your little Fatherland [the Sumy Region] is the only one in Ukraine, where presently the seizing of Orthodox churches continues and pressure is placed upon Orthodox believers. With respect, I ask You, as Head of State, to renew the legal right of the Orthodox inhabitants of the village of Bejevo, Lypovodolyns'kyj region, and stop the schismatics." In his letter of protest, Bishop Jevlohij referred to the members of the Kyivan Patriarchate as "Filaretian sectarians."
In a word, one can expect more stories like this to surface with the forth-coming presidential election. Religion plays a huge role in Ukrainian politics: pro-Russian candidates seek out the votes of the Ukrainian faithful belonging to the Moscow Patriarchate, while Western-leaning candidates rely on the votes of Ukrainian believers of those religious confessions independent of Moscow.
This simplification of things might help your readers unfamiliar with the Ukrainian reality place the Interfax "story" in its larger context.