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...
What the Archbishop fails to note is that according to the principles that Constantinople is so eager to share Australia is the territory of the Russian Patriarchate. The first Orthodox liturgies were celebrated here were by Russian clergy on russian ships in the first 2 decades of the 1800's. Then it was the :Lebanese and Syrians later that century who organised for a place of worship. It was only in the time of the heresarch Metaxis in 1920's did the greeks bother with Australia. We non greek orthodox do get somewhat miffed at the claims that the greeks should have pre eeminence. They are "johnny come lately's".
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