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...
Beautiful! Thanks for posting :).
ReplyDeleteThe thing about these stories is that the pictures of the events often come out weeks or months after the news stories. Glad the OCA has a speedy pipeline of photo publication.
ReplyDeleteThis was a wonderful pilgrimage. I have many pictures and it will take some time to process the events of this weekend.
ReplyDeletePhoto includes Archimandrite Zacchaeus of St. Catherine's (OCA) in Moscow and +JUSTINIAN, who is responsible for the North American parishes of the Moscow Patriarch. I had the blessing of attending hierarchical Liturgy at St. Catherine's where both served last month. In my personal experience, both wonderful Christian leaders and servants - Fr. Zacchaeus went out of his way to both help me and make me feel welcome when I was last in Moscow.
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