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...
That makes sense actually. Metropolitan Hilarion is Canadian born, of Ukrainian descent. In fact, Ukrainian was probably his household language as a child. It would make sense that he would want to see his co-nationals come out from isolation.
ReplyDeleteAnd now ROCOR is blamed in Russia for that tragicomedy.
ReplyDeleteThey do not have good press generally.
It is known that Filaret of Kyiv was passed over to be Patriarch of Moscow. He then suddenly "discovered" his Ukrainian identity, so he could become a "Patriarch" after all. Still, one cannot fault Metropolitan Hilarion for wanting to end a soul destroying schism.
ReplyDeleteWell, Met. Hilarion went the same way so that's why he may sympathise Pat. Philaret.
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