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...
Here's a beautiful video of the ordination. Glory to God for all things! http://youtu.be/hjLP1sHOg88
ReplyDeleteNot quite true. Fr. Anatolius Kung was recently ordained in Khabarovsk to serve as assistant priest at the Chinese Orthodox parish in Hong Kong. Although he is not serving a parish on mainland China, he is from the PRC and the first Chinese Orthodox priest ordained in the last 60 years. Fr. Alexander is the second, but will be the first ordained to serve a parish on the mainland with the permission of the authorities.
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