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...
I don't think I'm being over-sensitive when I say that they seemed to go out of their way to avoid mentioning the OCA or the fact that any Eastern Orthodox people may not be "ethnic", i.e.-Serbian, Greek, Russian, Polish, etc. The Russian priest looked like he was about to mention that fact but I don't know if he didn't or if it was edited out. If the video's purpose was to educate officers about those ethnicities, then why say it's a video about Eastern Orthodoxy? If the video was about Eastern Orthodoxy, then why make it look like only "new immigrants or fourth generation Chicagoans (great-grandchildren of immigrants)" were Orthodox? It seems to be perpetuating a common myth in this country. That said, the instructions about church behavior and treating blessed items with respect was good. I don't see how knowing which way we make the sign of the cross is of practical use to them though.
ReplyDeleteAlways neat to see one's bishop in a video!
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