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...
Last year, I got a tour of the library from Daria. There's an amazing collection there. Interesting point about this project: the Aleuts have been told that the Russians took their language and culture from them. Many of them are shocked to find out that their language books were all published in Russia with the enthusiastic support of the ROC. The new narrative was used to try to get young Aleuts to hate Orthodoxy and become Protestant, which has largely been successful now as most Aleuts don't go to church. But, this project is starting to turn that around, and everyone is hoping for a renaissance of native culture centered on the Church. The clock is ticking, however: the elders who remember are dying at a rapid rate.
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