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...
Bla, bla, bla.
ReplyDelete"You can not get through the massive PR campaign the Ukrainian's have put together..."
ReplyDeleteWell yes, but not solely due to any *inherent* strength of said PR campaign (and it is good - Zenlisky is a media expert and master at playing on the biases and beliefs of western liberals of all kinds: Euro, progressive's, conservatives, republican's, democrats, etc.).
The greater part as to why this lawyer will not make any significant progress in getting the MP affiliated Orthodox in Ukraine a hearing within the Western political culture is:
1) ALL the liberals (both left and right) in America and Europe have an Existential fear of the Russian Bear - does not matter if this fear is rational or not.
2) ALL the liberals (both left and right) in America and Europe make indescribable amounts of $money$ finding reasons to keep the military industrial complex in high gear
3) ALL the liberals (both left and right) in America and Europe will always side with a liberal ecclesiology, and the EP/OCU (for now) represent the 'national determination' side of things. Heck, so does the MP/UOC in their own (slightly older) way, not that there is a consistent/coherent ecclesiology of "autocephaly", "autonomy", and unity in the Orthodox Church since you know...wait for it...the fall of the Roman Empire ;)