Sr. Vassa: There's no ontological impediment to priestesses
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...
Is there a church canon somewhere that forbids adults from serving as bishops?
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ReplyDeleteThe Tsilis brothers (Nektarios of HK and Constantine of Singapore) are strange. They require Catholics to be received into Orthodoxy by baptism and consider the presence of the Moscow and Antiochian Patriarchates in SE Asia to be illegal and treat their priests as heterodox. One wonders why Constantinople threw them all the way here. Asia is the world's next frontier so this is not a wise move.
ReplyDeleteCan't blame the Russians (Moscow Patriarchate and ROCOR) and Antiochians for being in SE Asia. The Constantinople Patriarchate is no good at missionary work, after initially receiving congregations in Indonesia and the Philippines about 2 decades ago. There is stagnation in its missions. No wonder that much of the Indonesia mission of the Constantinople Patriarch went to ROCOR.
The title of the Patriarch of Antioch is Patriarch of Antioch and all the East. If anyone has a right to be there the Antiochians do.
ReplyDeleteFr. John Morris
The Bishop speaks very well and from the heart. The letter he mentions from the MP Bishop in Edmonton states that the priest shall serve under the EP bishop. That is all in order.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.omhksea.org/2013/07/press-release-about-the-schismatics-in-taiwan/
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