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 took Fr. Bogdan's online 'how to read Patristics' class this summer from SVS. He is an excellent teacher, quite the contrast to too many of my seminary classes. He is a student of Golitzen, recognizes the contribution of Origen, and otherwise a "subtle" theologian. That is to say, Orthobro's will be disappointed that he is not a simplistic (metaphysical) literalist (i.e. I am sure he recognizes the threshold of a church is not a supernatural barrier to viruses), nor a true believer in "Holy Russia".... ;)
ReplyDeleteI suppose I should add that he is not a "progressive" in any sense either, not being interested in women's ordination/LBGTQwerty anthropological revisionism, etc. Orthobro types can (or at least should) listen to him, but not if they are looking for mere approval of their presuppositions, their anxious dialectical spirituality
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