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...
Hmmm... Orthodox Christian Campus Ministries. Somehow, they and Orthodox Christian Fellowship will have to learn to quickly distinguish themselves as unique and distinct, as opposed to appearing as competing ministries (really, there is much they could work together on with the right tools). Misinformed clergy still calling OCF Orthodox Campus Fellowship will have to sort out their acronyms for the sake of students.
ReplyDeleteIt appears that this is also a long term solution to the "what to do about the Oriental Orthodox in OCF" question.