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...
If Orthodox were allowed to canonically pray for Muslims and Roman Catholics, do you think they'd pray for the victims of Serbian aggression? have they yet acknowledged they aren't just innocent bystanders to all this?
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ReplyDeleteNobody says you CAN'T pray for non-Orthodox. You just aren't supposed to do it within the context of an Orthodox service. Few people would argue that all the Serbs are innocent bystanders. An old Serbian Chetnik once told his American-born children," In war, nobody's hands are clean." It's just that the Western media has done a pretty good job in demonizing the Serbs.
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