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...
Some ethnicities carry their national Church with them wherever they go.
ReplyDeleteThis is either sinful when anybody does it or it's not sinful. Or our paradigm is off and we're not asking the right questions.
The universal tendency over two millenia of Christianity is for different peoples to craft distinctive liturgical forms and prefer them to others, to the point of some groups declining to out-marry and importing their own hierarchs. We are admonished repeatedly that this is a grave, schismatic sin, but the bishops, clergy and congregants continue to do it, over and over.
It's clearly an ethno-nationalist Church, but I'll defer on its theological standing. I don't get the sense these postings (and there are many of them) are to remind us that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek.
ReplyDeleteThe classic example to me is the "Carpatho-Russian" jurisdiction in the US. How many genetic Carpatho-Russians are even left? Are they shipping brides over from the Caucasus?
Like Jerry Seinfeld says, "Not that there's anything wrong with that." Again, the downstream effect of ethnicity and culture on liturgical practice is a universal and historic phenomenon that's outlasted the break-up of the Empire and trans-national migration. But nobody's hauling anybody in front of Councils over it and nobody's stopping Liturgies until we get it sorted out.
They separated early on by defining the Virgin Miriam as the christotolos and not the theotokos. Christ became divine at his baptism as such they are outside of the standard communion of churches. They do use Aramaic in their liturgy
ReplyDeleteWhy would Carpatho-Russians bring brides from the Caucasus? They're Carpatho-Russians, not Caucasian-Russians. Get your geography right before trying to make an argument.
ReplyDeleteHistorically, they were an extremely ethnically diverse church, stretching from Cyprus to China and from Soqotra to the Caucasus, until the Mongols and Tamerlane reduced them to populations in Kurdistan and Kerala. The 'Assyrian' was added under the influence of British missionaries who were trying their best to Anglicanize them, part of which involved making their identity ethnic rather than confessional. Their Indian dioceses don't use that part of the name.
ReplyDelete