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...
It is good news that Duke University is considering establishing a Duke-Halki institutional partnership that may accelerate the reopening of the Halki School of Theology.
ReplyDeleteTurkey closed down the Halki School over 40 years ago. It's about time Turkey reopened the Halki School of Theology, as it has promised to do several times during the past year.
Rather bleak story about this in The Times (of London). The link requires a subscription. Let me see if I can paste an excerpt:
ReplyDeleteA forced population exchange in 1923 devastated the Greek community. It was dealt further blows by riots in 1955 in which thousands of Greek businesses were destroyed. The population has dwindled to only 3,000 in a country that is 99 per cent Muslim.
Despite their small numbers, Greeks are still perceived in some quarters as a threat to Turkish nationhood and, even today, hostility is focused on the most visible target: the Orthodox Church and its top cleric. Turkey refuses to acknowledge Patriarch Bartholomew as leader of the worldwide Orthodox Church, and insists that his senior clergy come exclusively from the country’s tiny Greek community.
It is virtually impossible for the Church to train new priests after a 1971 law banned private religious education, forcing the closure of its main seminary on Halki.
“We are without oxygen. The patriarchate is dying,” Patriarch Bartholomew told the Turkish newspaper Milliyet.
In another interview, to CBS, the Patriarch sparked outrage by saying that his Church felt “crucified”.
His comment drew a rebuke from the Government and triggered a nationalist backlash, with one newspaper carrying a picture of Bartholomew nailed to a cross.