How about stick to one church dividing issue at a time? Maybe let's not stack Crete on top of Ukraine on top of this ill-advised progressive deaconess vanity project?
(ARCHONS) - With the blessings of His Eminence Metropolitan Evangelos of New Jersey, an Archon Symposium is scheduled at the St. Sophia, Sts. Faith, Hope & Agape Greek Orthodox Church, Jeffersonville (Norristown), PA, on Saturday, March 30, 2019, focusing on the historical, canonical and ecclesiastical status of the female diaconate, including a fresh look at the role of deacons in the Orthodox Church and an examination of whether the Church will lose young women if women continue not to be ordained.
The symposium will be introduced by the Historian of the Order of Saint Andrew, Archon George E. Demacopoulos, Ph. D., Professor of Theology, Co-Director, Orthodox Christian Studies Center Fordham University, Bronx, New York. Lectures will be presented by the Rev. Dr. John Chryssavgis, the renowned author and theologian, Archdeacon of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and theological advisor to the Ecumenical Patriarch; Teva Regule, PhD, of Boston College, a scholar of liturgical theology, history and ritual studies and noted researcher in the fields of sacramental theology, ecclesiology, ecumenism, theological anthropology, and the ministry of women in the Church; Kyra Limberakis, M.T.S., Director of the CrossRoad Summer Institute and Assistant Director of the Office of Vocation & Ministry at Hellenic College Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology; and Carrie Frederick Frost, PhD, Professor of Saint Sophia Ukrainian Orthodox Theological Seminary (UOC of USA), a board member of the Saint Phoebe Center for the Deaconess and the International Orthodox Theological Association.
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A conspiracy theorist might ask whether George Demacopoulos has seized control of the Archons. He's certainly pretty visible these days.
ReplyDelete“an examination of whether the Church will lose young women if women continue not to be ordained.”
ReplyDeleteSo your plan is to bribe women to stay in the Church, with ordination? How many zealous Orthodox women are there, exactly, who have one foot out the door, and the only thing that will keep them from apostasy is ordination? In what world does that make sense?
The idea of modern day deaconesses is already terrible, as if we don’t have enough room for scandals right now, and now you’re going to tell me that the people you plan to ordain are women who would otherwise leave the Church on a whim because they don’t get to wear fancy robes and hold authoritative positions?
What could go wrong.
Sojourner, I can't decide whether to laugh or cry at what you wrote. In any case, I think you've hit the nail on the head. Lord, have mercy.
DeleteA collection of the "usual suspects" in the women's ordination reform movement within English speaking Orthodoxy. I had Dr. Frost as a professor. I don't recognize Limberakis however - is she new on the seen?
ReplyDeleteOrthodoxy *in* America, which is to say a modern/secular culture, is going to struggle to *be* Orthodox just as Florovsky, Schmemann, and others said. They don't teach the history of ideas and western (secular) culture at our seminaries and in our theological doctoral programs, so folks like these just bumble along with their unexamined presuppositions (e.g. Dr. Frost, to the extant that you can attribute consistency to her, is a Kantian moralist).
The real question is are the people, the average person standing at any given Orthodox church on any given Sunday, are they secularized to such a point that folks such as the above can *lead* them into women's ordination?
"The real question is are the people, the average person standing at any given Orthodox church on any given Sunday, are they secularized to such a point that folks such as the above can *lead* them into women's ordination?"
ReplyDeleteOnly over my cold, dead, priestly body.
"Only over my cold, dead, priestly body."
ReplyDeleteI appreciate the sentiment Father, I really do! However, is there anything in our long cultural experience of secularism that suggests that a properly catechized clergy (i.e. one that is non-secular in fundamental ethos) is enough? Unfortunately I see no evidence of that at all. On the contrary, we have plenty of evidence that suggests the hierarchy/clergy, after a certain tipping point, is if at best neutral if not a hinderance.
One of the things about Rod Dreher position that rings true to me is his insistence that a proper adjustment to secularism will not come from the hierarchy/clergy - the Body will not be lead out of this present secular wasteland by the normal institutional leadership.
Guess will have to wait and see...
DeleteI have noticed that prior to Constantinople rolling out their various innovations...George D. and Archdeacon John prepare the ground with propaganda campaigns. Very interesting.
ReplyDeleteJake,
ReplyDeleteOften it’s the clergy leading the way off the precipice.
My understanding of the historical role of female deacons was not liturgical.
ReplyDeleteI don’t have any problem with that being revived if there is a need, which is debatable to be sure but I’m willing to hear the case in favor.
However, Who can seriously imagine this happening and there not being continued pressure for liturgical functions, leading ever more toward pressure to ordain female priests.
Yeah well, historically its the clergy who pulled the faithful back from going off the cliff too. Every single Ecumenical council or church crisis proves that.
ReplyDeleteI don't follow. Historically (by which I assume you mean the first millennium Christological debates/councils) BOTH orthodox and heterodox had their clergy. I think that is Maximus' point, and it was my point as well.
DeleteClergy, just as laity, are reflective of the ethos/spirit of the ecclesia of which they are a part. An extension of my point is that often, too often, laity look to a personality (and in our ecclesiastical structure this would most likely be an ordained man) to lead them out of the desert (however defined: secularism, this or that canonical or financial crises, etc.) and into the promised land. This is one of the ways an ecclesia gets to "clericalism".
Also, here is a hard truth: if your bishop, backed by his synod and even marginally supported (say, not explicitly but they are not readily accepting transfer requests either) by the other canonical jurisdictions, one day ordains one or more female deacons...truly, what are you going to do? You can't lead your parish - putting aside the divisions - into anything but...what? Old Calendar True Orthodoxy? Would your people go with you? Even if you managed this, what about all the other priests? You and even a significant number of your priestly brotherhood are going to break off from the diocese of the South?
Here is a sober assessment: If and when female deacons are ordained, the majority (I would hazard a guess of around 70-90%) of all clergy & laity are going exactly nowhere after much grumbling and working out of how to "resist from within"...
Nah, there have never been women deacons. The so called revived order of deaconess in Alexandria isn't even properly tonsured nor is it really even a deaconess.
ReplyDeleteCan anyone explain why it takes so many people so many "conferences" and international consultations to discuss the meaning of deacons? Face it. They are of no use. Priests are. Deaconesses doubly of no use. They just don't matter. Speed bump on the road to priest or....What? But it's Apostolic! It's in the Bible! It evolved away. A deacon has set lines in services and are never missed if they aren't there. I'm sure we have very sensible deacons and also sure they are functionless unless a priest is around. Deaconess activists: The Episcopal Church Welcomes You.
ReplyDeleteI have to disagree about deacons. A couple of years ago we moved to a diocese that's working to restore a regular diaconate, and it makes a big difference in how the services are done. I'm very grateful.
DeleteOur parish couldn't function without our deacons - they do a tremendous amount, and now that our priest retired due to health problems and we are still looking for a new one we are doubly blessed that they are there. While our priest was sick for a year off and on before he decided to retire, the deacons were blessed by the Bishop to do obednitsa so that we could still have communion.
DeleteAnd TRAINED Readers, a severely underappreciated Vocation. Any ordination rank less than a priest should be respected as a valid terminal Vocation and not a path to the Priesthood. Deacons are critical and without trained Readers to ensure service rubrics are followed you have chaos. Each diocese should have a training program for Readers just as there is a program to train Deacons.
DeleteAs a woman, I think that if we want to retain women in the Church it would be far better to start emphasizing the traditional beauty and role of the Theotokos. Just the other day there was a woman complaining about the male centered authority and the degrading of the church, but when I pointed out that God created women to have a hidden and self-effacing beauty in the image of the Theotokos who specifically as a woman has a way of being self-effacing that simply is not available to men she immediately connected with this. We don't need women's pride, we need to recapture the beauty of hiddeness,self-effacement, and self sacrifice when this is recaptured the beauty intrinsic in femininity and the feminine role in society which naturally tends towards a much more hidden type of sacrifice, becomes obvious. this is why the Theotokos is so revered among the monastics. They understand this virtue.
ReplyDeleteWell said, Anna.
Delete"..It's the same in Catholicism: The North American Church floats absurdity.."
ReplyDeleteActually the RCC is pretty messed up outside the US too. Check out the news from Europe or the most recent corroborating news that most RCC priests and prelets are gay and liberation theology has gutted Latin America. I would not use the RCC as an example unless you are implying something surepticiously.
David,
ReplyDeleteBe sure to check out:
http://www.aoiusa.org/a-public-statement-on-orthodox-deaconesses-by-concerned-clergy-and-laity/
if you have not already. Protodeacon Brian Patrick Mitchell also has a good talk/paper at the last St. Phoebe's conference...
To be honest, it's a made up scenario, so my answer would just be an exercise in futility.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with your assessment though. The fallout would be huge. But that's just my opinion.
There aren't even female readers and the major meltdown that's happened the half dozen times little girls put on robes and were made to tromp around the altar ahold give us an idea the real temperature on this issue.
If a bishop or synod ordained a woman to be a deacon, there'd be outrage, shunning, and quite possibly loss of communion.
I doubt I'd even get a chance to react as a parish priest.
Also, if it was my bishop or synod, I giant we you priests would already know about the impending decision long before it happened. This is undoubtedly the norm for other churches/synods.
In other words, it wouldn't be a willy nilly decision or just like hey I woke up this morning and ordained a random women to be a deacon.
All this being said, Lord have mercy on the woman in the Orthodox Church who would let herself be subject to such a situation. The scrutiny alone leading up to be considered for "ordination"...,
In short, I disagree that this would happen or that the response would be to go long with it
Thanks for your perspective Father!
DeleteI was actually in a parish when certain leadership tried to robe little girls. This leadership knew enough to say the intent was not alter girls - they were not to go behind the alter ;) (what they were supposed to do is not even worth talking about - it was farcical). My wife told said leadership (because are older daughter was to be a robed one), and I quote, "over my dead body". I am blessed with a good wife! The lay parish board of which I was a part (but not the rest of the parish) was unanimously against it. The bishop handled it in a quite matter ultimately, but I think this is actually one of the problems and unfortunately the issue was allowed to fester.
By the way, my Metropolitan attended Crete and he admitted that Patriarch of Alexandria's intentions were discussed. He obviously approved of the coming actions (this was Dec 2016). Given however the ambiguity (are they readers? are they something new?) one wonders if his actions are were in part a compromise of some sort.
So, my experience leads me to believe that to the extant that there is a real desire for women's ordination, it is a top down phenomena. The higher up on the theological educated, clerical, and "intellectual" ladder you climb in English speaking Orthodoxy the more support you find for it (Met. Kallistos is another example). This is entirely consistent with what we know about secularism and how it "works" so to speak.
Freudian slip: I meant "altar girls" ;)
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