Contemporary Orthodoxy often projects itself through adherence to tradition, liturgy, and a fervent commitment to the authenticity of Apostolic faith, a stance that Orthodox theologians seldom contest. However, contemporary discussions on gender roles within the Orthodox Church, influenced by modern ideologies and the challenges of postmodern thought have compelled theologians to navigate these issues while still championing the venerable principles of ancient, Apostolic tradition. This scenario has led to a diversification in theological discourse, marketed under the esteemed banner of traditional faith but offering varied interpretations and understandings. The allure of Eastern mysticism encourages a shift away from the often-perceived rigidity of Western analytical thought, proposing instead a vision of the Church as a dynamic community bereft of the shackles of “definition”, “category” and other such concepts that are of late, unfashionable for many inquirers. However much such marketing may have lead to success, it has also opened the door for theological speculation, the uprooting of traditional paradigms, and in many cases, contributed to an obscurantism veiled in the language of dialogue, openness, and dynamism within the faith.
Among other contentious issues, this dynamic is rendered most clear in the debate concerning female “priesthood”. For many Christians, the inspiration behind this discourse is fundamentally sociological, appropriate for the fundamental inability of the modern man to understand the symphony of symbolism we enjoy as created beings, who partake of equally of the dignity of the Divine Logos. However, enough theologians of considerable caliber have taken up the mantle of honest dialogue to suggest that the question of female priesthood is legitimate, and moreover that as traditional, Apostolic, eschatological, and liturgical Christians, we have yet to provide a theologically compelling reason for why the answer to the question is “no.” Often enough, the belief that women cannot be priests in Orthodoxy is so well-established that the most common reaction is an appeal to tradition, mixed with some level of emotional shock and disdain. Perhaps in this, we can see the “auto-immune” response of the Church at play, it seems this has not precluded the need for a stronger antidote.
Fr. Alexander Schmemann wrote, “The ordination of women to priesthood is tantamount for us to a radical and irreparable mutilation of the entire faith, the rejection of the whole Scripture, and, needless to say, the end of all “dialogues”; ‘the threat of an irreversible and irreparable act which, if it becomes reality, will produce a new, and this time, I am convinced, final division among Christians” (Quoted by Kallistos Ware). It is my intention to express and uphold the spirit of the statement precisely with due respect to the Orthodox theological symphony of tradition, liturgy, typology, and scripture, all of which provide us with a most fulsome answer for why the traditional ordering of the Church hierarchy is in accordance with God’s fundamental design.
Generally speaking, the belief that women can be permitted to the sacramental priesthood rests on a few key assumptions, not all of which are held simultaneously by its proponents:
- The primary reason for excluding women lies not on theological, and certainly not dogmatic grounds, but rather on an arbitrary or misogynistic argument concerning women’s competency to lead a community.
- That the Incarnation entails Christ assuming human nature as a whole, and having assumed both men, and women, all symbolic features of Christ’s incarnation, including His priesthood, extend to both men and women.
- That Christ’s having assumed a male body is a matter of sociological, not metaphysical relevance, and that Christ now enjoys a form of androgyny in His reincarnated and ascended state.
- As a result of this essential androgyny, all references to masculinity and femininity as archetypes present in our sacraments and in the typology of the Old Testament are equally accessible to both men and women by virtue of the Imago Dei.
These points indicate that there are various layers to the question at hand, from more “profane” considerations of capability to deeper theological motivations. As stated, not all proponents of a female priesthood agree on these. What is clear is that Orthodox proponents of varying qualities have argued at times from each of these. Some of these arguments are primarily agnostic, stating that there is insufficient theological reasoning to suggest that women cannot be priests. Some of these arguments become sociological, and some of them attempt to develop a theology that insists on an essential androgyny to each human being, and this androgyny is the principle upon which a unity with Christ can be achieved by members of both sexes. Ultimately, all treat the exclusivity of the male priesthood as a matter of illegitimacy, owing to either ignorance on part of the Church and its saints, the nature of power, or both. Some go so far as to not merely say this is a matter of illegitimacy, but a matter of active necessity, stating that our faith in the incarnation demands that women occupy these roles.
To decipher this, several questions must be answered. These answers must pay some respect to several key defining features of Orthodox life to truly warrant the esteem of a “theological” impediment to the female priesthood. It is abundantly clear that the Orthodox tradition has not at any point ordained women to the priesthood, and for some this alone is sufficient along with other intuitive truths, such as the fact that all the Apostles were male. Indeed, perhaps this is entirely sufficient for most. But if we are to take up the mantle of theological persuasion, more is needed, and indeed more can be provided.
Orthodox theology cannot be reduced to a particular constituent element, such that may be employed in some arguments against the female priesthood. Tradition is one such element, but it is obvious that this is neither sufficient, nor necessary to proponents of the female priesthood. Recognizing the priesthood as an integral element of the economy of salvation, one must therefore pay due diligence to Orthodox spiritual life as a whole. As such, this article will demonstrate that the priesthood as an indelible “masculine” character which is realized in the ontological priority of the male sex, which is a metaphysical principle that is realized in the manner of Christ’s incarnation, the relevance of His being the “New Adam,” and in particular how this model is realized relative to the opposing principle, that of Eve, the Theotokos, and the Church itself.
To answer the question of Christ assuming the whole of human nature, we should also recognize other typological and symbolic features of human existence that are proper to women. Most notably, the Church is understood in the feminine, and while Christ is the head of the Church, the Church is also His Body. The Church is most aptly expressed in the perfect spirituality and obedience of the Theotokos, who in Christ, provides us with the symbolic foundations as the New Eve, as the Ark of the Covenant, as the Holy of Holies. St. Paul and the corpus of Christian literature provide us with a keen sense of the feminine spirituality, its centrality to the life of the Church.
Incarnation
The incarnation is a bedrock of Orthodox Christology and anthropology. As human persons who ultimately find themselves realized in the incarnate Logos, we must have an understanding of those elements of our being which are essential, and which are modal. The question of gender is significant, for one must contend with the nature of the soul qua hypostasis, which also directs us to the question of what the relevance is of Christ’s incarnation as a human male. It is also important to understand what Christ did not assume in His Incarnation by virtue of what the Incarnation entails and how it was accomplished.
Proponents of the “open question” of female priesthood, when not resorting to sociological argumentation or arguments of function and competency, often resort to questions around the essence, nature, and hypostatic qualities of human beings. When Elisbaeth Behr-Sigel discusses the question, the fundamental premise that her theories are built off of lie in the primacy of the person as opposed to the primacy of nature. In this instance, it is precisely the fact that the human person cannot be reduced to a set of essential qualities that we cannot speak of female competencies, “women’s charisms,” and so on.
In other cases, it is precisely a resort to nature that we encounter. Traditional patristic anthropology most certainly does define beings in terms of their essential and hypostatic realities, noting that the qualitative content of one’s being lies in their nature, particularized in properties in a hypostasis. However, human nature is not, as a universal, “gendered”. Indeed, Christ assumed a universal human nature, to the extent that no human can properly speaking be excluded from His salvation, for “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28).
In also understanding the constitutive elements of the human person, the Fathers emphasize universally that the soul is not gendered, but the body ultimately is. St. Augustine states,
“Not woman’s flesh, but the woman herself was taken out of man, that she must be considered in her entire nature endued with soul and spirit. For although the soul is undistinguished by sex, yet when women are mentioned it is not necessary to regard them apart from the soul.” (On the Soul and Its Origin, Book 1, Chapter 29)
Likewise, St. Cyril of Jerusalem states,
“The soul is immortal, and all souls are alike both of men and women; for only the members of the body are distinguished. There is not a class of souls sinning by nature, and a class of souls practising righteousness by nature : but both act from choice, the substance of their souls being of one kind only, and alike in all.” (Catechical Lectures 4:20)
And most decisively, we have from St. Gregory the Theologian,
“O nature of woman overcoming that of man in the common struggle for salvation, and demonstrating that the distinction between male and female is one of body not of soul! O Baptismal purity, O soul, in the pure chamber of your body, the bride of Christ! O bitter eating! O Eve mother of our race and of our sin! O subtle serpent, and death, overcome by her self-discipline! O self-emptying of Christ, and form of a servant, and sufferings, honoured by her mortification!” (Oration 8:14)
While it is clear that the soul is not gendered, this does not offer us the opportunity to enjoy a sort of essential androgyny, wherein we recognize that an individual human being is, in essence, non-gendered, but that the body they happen to have is the sole determining factor in this question. However, it is indicative of a certain level of theological and Christological poverty to suggest that the “femaleness” or “maleness” of a given person is not a hypostatic reality, but rather something similar to saying that one is also born blonde, short, or with some form of other physical marker. But to do this invites an element of abstraction to an individual human existence. What it does not answer is the simple fact that within the economy of God’s salvation, God still operates through a hierarchical and ontological order that extends to the ordering of His creation. The crucial error here is to say that enjoying participation in Christ in fullness entails the removal of any relevant differentiating obstacles between human beings, even those which God took great pains to establish in Genesis, throughout the Old Testament, and through to the New. It assumes that Christ’s choice of “maleness”, through to his choice of Apostles could have easily been undertaken as a female, with perhaps gender-parity among the Apostles, including to the point where among them were females who received the gifts of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
However, when St. Paul speaks of neither “Jew nor Greek” and “Male nor Female,” these naturally speak to the ontological unity that all humanity enjoys in Christ by virtue of the incarnation. In both examples, St. Paul’s emphasis lies not in a Gnostic denial of the body or the particulars of man having any meaning, but rather in an emphasis on the universal identity that all human beings enjoy in Christ, one which is all-encompassing. And it is within this identity with Christ that all human beings find not only the personal fulfillment of their being, but they also find their place in God’s order of creation.
This is the context in which we may understand that “…that which he has not assumed He has not healed; but that which is united to His Godhead is also saved.” (St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Letter to Cledonus). However, when St. Gregory goes on, he writes, “If only half Adam fell, then that which Christ assumes and saves may be half also; but if the whole of his nature fell, it must be united to the whole nature of Him that was begotten, and so be saved as a whole.” (Ibid.) Why then, is it that through Adam humanity receives the fall, when we understand that Eve had experienced the first fall into sin? If human essence is held in common in the way that is implied by this statement, there is no theologically compelling reason to explain why it was that it is through Adam that the fall is experienced. Orthodox theology posits in no uncertain terms that every human being, male or female, contains the whole of human nature. Therefore, there has to be some quality inherent to Adam as a hypostasis, as a particular individual, which distinguishes him from his female counterpart, such that it is in him that mankind participates unto sin, with Christ reversing this, creating the conditions wherein participation in Him now frees mankind from sin.
This is absolutely essential to understand if one is to develop a theology of Christ’s incarnation in the first place. There is significance to the fact that Adam was created first, in the manner in which he was created. If we assume that there is no significance to this, then we can conclude that the only differentiating factor between Adam and Eve is fundamentally that of “First human” and “Second human.” Eve’s priority is lacking not in terms of her hypostatic qualities, but only as a matter of order and chronology. However, it is clear that Eve is not merely another hypostasis, but that she was created from the hypostasis of Adam rather than from an abstract human nature. As St. Paul writes, “Man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.” (1 Corinthians 11:8)
In this lies a beautiful theme. That in receiving her very existence from Adam, Eve enjoys a tremendous and deep ontological connection to him such that she as a human cannot be contemplated apart from him. It is within Adam that Eve is contemplated, and from the union of the two that humanity as a whole partakes of a common being. This is a theme which is radically familiar to Orthodox Christians, because this is precisely the manner in which we receive life and true being from Christ. We are baptized into his death, born against in His resurrection, and are both recognized as His body, and we partake of His physical body in the Eucharist. “Humanity” as such, in its real sense, cannot be contemplated without some recourse to its Saviour, for Christ now forms humanity in its most principled and essential sense.
It therefore demonstrates a severe theological poverty to suggest that the maleness of Christ is a matter of sociological consideration. At best, this argument stems from a secular and humanistic perspective, but at worst it can take on a theological dimension of its own, namely that Christ’s incarnation as a male was a matter of appearance, and that the humanity he took on was an all-encompassing abstraction. This has some precedent in history, not within the Church, but among heresies. St. Augustine identifies this error with the Quintillians and Montanists:
“[The Quintillians are heretics who] give women predominance so that these, too, can be honored with the priesthood among them. They say, namely, that Christ revealed himself . . . to Quintilla and Priscilla [two Montanist prophetesses] in the form of a woman” (Heresies 1:17 [A.D. 428])
In this, St. Augustine relies on the testimony of St. Epiphanius, who repeats the same charge:
“Christ came to me in the form of a woman,” she said, “dressed in a white robe, imbued me wisdom, and revealed to me that this place is holy, and that Jerusalem will descend from heaven here... They have woman bishops, presbyters and the rest; they say that none of this makes any difference because “In Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female.” (Against Heresies, 49.1.1)
It is fascinating to note of course that these are very similar to the arguments we see today. Though some surmise we have not adequately provided theological explanations for the lack of a female priesthood, some have gone so far as to say that a female priesthood is necessary by virtue of the incarnation. But to make such an assumption is to effectively denigrate beyond any comprehension the significance of either male or female. To do so would be to ascribe to all human individuals a sort of essential androgyny which must be the principle of their existence if they are meaningfully to unite with Christ. Fr. Matthew Baker of blessed memory however, speaks specifically to this claim in discussing the resurrection, and specifically the resurrection of the Theotokos:
“The sign tells us: through the resurrection of Jesus, each one of us will rise again in our body, restored, as we were also once conceived in our mother’s womb: as male or female… Our Gnostics would like us to think of man and woman, mother and father, as interchangeable, shifting identities: not the Creator’s good and lasting design, but inventions of society, or plastic-self constructions.” (Fr. Matthew Baker, A Homily on the Dormition of the Theotokos)
What is obvious from the tradition, theology, and scriptural tradition of the Church is the simple fact that Adam enjoys an ontological primacy, which is demonstrated through the roles he undertakes as the masculine type. Philosophically, we have to understand that the concept of an essential “androgynous” human nature as an abstract concept we participate in is not viable. Human nature exists in persons, and for those persons, the body is a fundamental, constitutive element of who, and what they are. For which reason, it can, and should be said that the human person is either male, or female, and both modes of existence are consequential to Orthodox soteriology and sacramentology.
Scripture & Typology
The typological significance of priesthood is a central theme of the Old Testament. From a traditional angle, one can naturally attribute the exclusive “male” character of the priesthood today to the typological priesthood of the Old Testament. The two more explicit areas here are of course, the priesthoods of Melchizedek and Aaron. However, it is important to note that in every case, all priesthood is an extension at the local level of what Adam was to perform at the universal level– at the level of creation.
Adam bears an ontological primacy as the first created human being and “type” of Christ, a fact that can be understood from Christ’s being the “new Adam.” Having explained the incarnational logic of Christ being man, this logic also extends to the question of Adam’s “maleness”, and the significance of his work in the Garden. Primacy and superiority are fundamentally distinct in this instance. In all things, what is “superior” is that which has its place within the economy of God’s salvation. The incarnational and typological logic that is relevant to Adam therefore, also extends to Eve. Simply put, it is the proper dignity of both to act in accordance with the role given them by God, rather than the nature of the assignment they had received. For instance, it can be established with virtually no controversy that in mastering the summit of female virtue, the Theotokos eclipses all human beings in her grace, male or female. The Theotokos is “superior” in this sense because she is a realization of the highest virtue of what, and how she was created to be.
However, what has been established is the nature of the work being performed by Adam in the Garden, and what this means for the “New Adam.” The type of work being conducted by Adam is the work that is ultimately undertaken and finished by Christ. Therefore, Christ must be seen in light of what Adam was relative to that which came from Adam, that is Eve. In the same way then, we see this example extended. What then, is “of Christ,” in the same sense of being a new creation if not the Church, which stands in for Eve? In this picture, the contrast between Adam and Eve becomes critical, and the fundamental contrast between the two is, thematically, definitionally, the contrast between the masculine and the feminine, where both by virtue of their sex embody these principles. If we take this critical component away, then we are forced to see Eve’s “secondary” place as a chronological one. This is simply a human being which was formed out of the other, and it is a chronological distinction at best. In a metaphysical sense, it is a process of cloning with minor adjustment to account for biological technicality. To take this view at face value, we are forced then, to abandon our typology of Christ and His Church entirely. Moreover, we deprive ourselves of recognizing within creation the economy present within the Trinity, with the Son coming out of the Father and receiving everything which He is from Him with the exception of the quality of being unoriginate. The fact of the Son being “what” the Father is, does not mean the Father and the Son are interchangeable. Indeed, the Father’s quality as origin is His defining hypostatic quality, in the same way that Adam’s being origin and the ontological primacy which he enjoys is a hypostatic quality.
However, the Church has been entirely clear in how it perceives this matter. The Church is clear for instance, that in the same way as Christ is a “New Adam,” it is the Theotokos that is the New Eve. St. Justin Martyr writes, “He became man by the Virgin, in order that the disobedience which proceeded from the serpent might receive its destruction in the same manner in which it derived its origin. For Eve, who was a virgin and undefiled, having conceived the word of the serpent, brought for disobedience and death. But the Virgin Mary received faith and joy, when the angel Gabriel announced the good tidings to her that the Spirit of the Lord would come upon her.” (Dialogue with Trypho).
It is an important theological principle that we elevate both Adam as High Priest as well as Eve as not just a “helper” as may be described, but in her being a helper, she plays a crucial role in the economy of salvation, of Adam’s work in the garden. Drawing from the fact that we ascribe qualities of Christ to Adam as typology, we can therefore do the same to Eve through the Theotokos. Our tradition therefore speaks of the Theotokos in the following terms: “The most pure Temple of the Saviour, the most precious bridal chamber and Virgin, the sacred treasury of the glories of God, today enters into the house of the Lord, bringing with her the grace that is the Divine Spirit. And the Angels of God sing of her: This is the heavenly tabernacle.” (Kontakion of the Entrance, Tone 4).
St. Irenaeus therefore described the Theotokos in such terms:
“Mary, however, became the cause of salvation, both to herself and the whole human race, and therefore set the first Eve at liberty… The knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. For what the Virgin Eve had bound fast through unbelief, the Virgin Mary set free through faith.” (Against Heresies, 3.22.4)
We therefore have two areas of significance. The Adam-Eve dichotomy extends not merely to Christ-Theotokos, but to Christ and His Church as well. The Church, which is the Body of Christ, is embodied by the Theotokos, a principle that is most clearly laid out in Revelation 12, “And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.“
The Theotokos therefore embodies a principle absolutely distinct from priesthood. Priesthood, which is proper to Christ, the New Adam, has a specific role to play in terms of creation, that of bringing together, atoning for the sins of the people, “that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.” (Ephesians 5:27) Eve therefore, operates as a figure within the dichotomy as a type of Israel, a type of the Church, for though Adam himself operates within that principle by virtue of being a part of creation, he also embodies the paternal, masculine, and priestly principle relative to Eve, his bride.
Therefore, we speak of the Theotokos as sanctuary, as tabernacle, indeed as the temple itself, which is cleansed, made pure, and becomes the means through which God is made manifest in the world. We must work off of this universalizing principle and recognize that this pattern of creation is repeated in all instances throughout the Old Testament. This principle is seen most aptly in Melchizedek, “And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine: and he was [is] the priest of the most high God. And he blessed him, and said, ‘Blessed be Abram to the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth, And blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand’. And he gave him tithe from all.” (Genesis 14:18-20), and it is precisely to Melchizedek’s priesthood that St. Paul lays credence in Hebrews 7, where he describes the fact that it is through Melchizedek that the Law is renewed, not as a continuation, but the establishment of a principle of renewal. That is to say, per St. Paul, Melchizedek creates a “type” which Christ follows, and this is a universalizing type in which all are joined. St. Paul says that the Levites pay tithes to Melchizedek by virtue of their origin in Abraham, and it is through this principle that we all enjoy the presence of Christ as high priest, who brings up the final offering to the Father.
The very concept of sacrifice is central to the priesthood. Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is a priestly act, an act which we symbolically realize in every liturgy. A priest of the Church offers up “Thine own, of Thine own, on behalf of all, and for all” precisely to accomplish this principle, not to repeat or in any way imply that Christ is regularly sacrificed, but that we may participate in this sacrifice as His people. In every instance of the Old Testament of sacrifices being made, we understand that from Adam, there are continued instances of priesthood offered through sacrifice. In Genesis 4, we already see this principle at play through Cain and Abel, and indeed the first thing Noah does after the flood is offer a sacrifice on behalf of his family. We continue to see this principle at play through Joshua, Gideon, and other Judges, with Deborah notably never having performed such a function.
We recognize also not just in the general theme of the Old Testament, but specifically with Israel’s microcosmic significance, as a containment of God’s proper ordering of creation, a pattern of behaviour that encompasses the entire significance of these themes. The Levitical priesthood continued to offer atonement and cleansing for the people of Israel from their sins. Indeed, while one might often point to the fact that St. Peter describes all Christians as a “holy priesthood,” this very same theme is already present for Israel as a whole in the Old Testament, “and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.” (Exodus 19:6)
The headship of the King of Israel over the people, in tandem with the role of the Levitical Priesthood is realized in one principle, that of Melchizedek, in Christ. Indeed, if the king is to take upon himself the headship of the people, and their atonement, it is precisely as king that Christ is the Suffering Servant, the one who will be struck for the sins of the people. Christ both intercedes on behalf of His people, and atones for their sins through His offering of Himself as a sacrifice. This is relevant because it is precisely the Adamic role to bring into order the creation of God, but in addition to doing so, through sacrifice, ensuring the creation is without blemish.
The masculinity of the priesthood is therefore understood within the framework of the ontological priority of Adam. The natural order of creation, as established by God, dictates that the Church’s worship must follow this order so that the Church can fulfill its role as the priestly nation. The male, serving as the ontic hypostatic root bearing the entire human race, fulfills specific priestly functions, which, according to Orthodox theology, cannot be assumed by women due to their ontological distinction from the male as represented in Adam. The individual man who receives the Holy Orders receives an ontic reality in relation to the ontological reality of Adam’s primacy. The Apostolic Constitutions speak of this natural order of creation as being the marker of the male priesthood:
“[T]he ‘man is the head of the woman’ [1 Cor. 11:3], and he is originally ordained for the priesthood; it is not just to abrogate the order of the creation and leave the first to come to the last part of the body. For the woman is the body of the man, taken from his side and subject to him, from whom she was separated for the procreation of children. For he says, ‘He shall rule over you’ [Gen. 3:16]. . . . But if in the foregoing constitutions we have not permitted them [women] to teach, how will any one allow them, contrary to nature, to perform the office of the priest? For this is one of the ignorant practices of Gentile atheism, to ordain women priests to the female deities, not one of the constitutions of Christ” (Apostolic Constitutions, 8:24)
But indeed, this is not to speak of theology in the negative. As mentioned, emphasizing Adam’s attributes as priest being realized in Christ in contrast to Eve does not mean that Eve does not bear specific qualities of her own, but that Eve’s qualities encompass the Church as a whole, and where Eve faltered, these qualities are perfected in the Theotokos, who most notably was not a priest. St. Ephiphanus of Salamis touches on this principle, “If women were to be charged by God with entering the priesthood or with assuming ecclesiastical office, then in the New Covenant it would have devolved upon no one more than Mary to fulfill a priestly function. She was invested with so great an honor as to be allowed to provide a dwelling in her womb for the heavenly God and King of all things, the Son of God. . . . But he did not find this [the conferring of priesthood on her] good” (Against Heresies, 79:3). At St. Epiphanus argues, if the Theotokos herself, bearing the height of human dignity, was not called to a priestly function, then this indicates something about the nature of womanhood in contrast to malehood with respect to the holy orders.
Thus far, we can establish two principles. One is that the incarnation of Christ as a man is not an accidental matter, nor God-forbid, a sociological consideration. In adopting a human nature, Christ as a person becomes specifically male, and though the soul is not gendered, theologically we understand the body to be a fundamental aspect of what it is to be human, therefore being able to say that Christ was indeed man, and specifically, “male.” But this does not mean that Christ did not assume the wholeness of human nature, but rather that it is precisely the ontological primacy of maleness, its containing of all humanity as a principle, that allows us to speak of His having assumed all. As a second principle, we understand that maleness is intrinsically linked to the priesthood by developing on the dichotomy drawn out from Adam and Eve, through to Christ and the Theotokos, and Christ and the Church.
Functionality, Teaching, and Gender Distinction
The arguments for a female priesthood stem from several sources of varying degrees of error. While as Orthodox we evidently enjoy a theological and typological grounding for our understanding of the priesthood, in many instances the issue has been seen as a matter of capability. Namely, that the priesthood is a function of competence and not a matter of sacramental ontology. In this argument, it is assumed that women are precluded from the priesthood due to a perceived inability to take on the role of authority. In actual fact, even generalizations are not sufficient to push back against this argument. If we argued that the priesthood is unavailable to women purely because of perceived inherent inability, then it would be sufficient to see even one woman who was wiser, more capable in governance, and more faithful in teaching. Likewise, it should always be understood that fair arguments concerning the psycho-spiritual temperament of men, disposition towards leadership and the natural order of a given society, also are not sufficient to address the fact that by and large, virtually all men are unworthy in some degree of the priesthood. While I would personally argue that Christian anthropology has traditionally leaned towards this, it is insufficient for our purposes to rest on the argument on an idea resembling “men can be priests because they generally do a better job than women at such tasks.”
The Orthodox however, have never seen an issue with receiving spiritual direction from the many Mothers of the Church, and indeed the continued wealth of witness from her female saints, the female monastics and indeed, ordinary women who frequently theologize, provide pastoral care and perform an entire host of indispensable service of the Church. Truly, we can think of no human being on this planet that ever demonstrated the heights of embodied wisdom as the Theotokos! This of course, harkens back to the point of St. Epiphanius concerning the matter, that if this were merely a question of competency and spiritual worthiness, then the most obvious candidate for the priesthood would be the Theotokos. However, this is not how the sacramental nature of the priesthood is constructed.
To suggest that the priestly office is merely a pastoral one is misguided at best. This is not to denigrate the clearly scriptural praxis laid out by St. Paul, who states that “I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.” (1 Timothy 2:12). Acknowledging scripture as we do, we are forced to conclude either that St. Paul was wrong, which is argued with an unfortunately increasing level of frequency among some heterodox, or that there is a different element to this. Prima facie, such a statement precludes the presence of many of our saints and female witnesses, and in terms of authority, it rejects many of our hagiographic and biblical tradition. Such examples as St. Deborah the Judge, or St. Helen, the mother of St. Constantine, or St. Theodora, St. Olga of Kyiv, and countless others lay testament to the fact that there is a role for even women’s political authority that cannot be entirely cast aside. To this day and throughout the centuries of the existence of the Church, women have been a limitless fount of knowledge and wisdom, with even female monastics being able to hear confessions from the faithful and provide guidance. From a spiritual perspective, I would need more than one lifetime to describe the feats of spiritual excellence undertaken by the saintly mothers of the Church, especially the Theotokos.
We are left with the conclusion that the teaching authority St. Paul describes takes on a deeper, and more serious liturgical, sacramental quality. He definitively demonstrates this in how he approaches the question of women’s head coverings. Once again, one can approach this from a functional angle, as some do, in saying that this is a matter of modesty in the face of sexual temptation, as many of the Fathers in fact do. However, St. Paul does not make this argument. There are two other instances where he speaks of the behaviour of women relative to men. To start, he already establishes the ontic priority of man over woman in the following:
“But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God. Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head. But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven. For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered. For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.” (1 Corinthians 2:3:9)
In this we already see that creating distinctions in spiritual practice between men and women is a symbolic reality. He states that man is the “image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of man,” which parallels the typological principle we have already laid out. He further states,
“For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels.” (1 Corinthians 11:10)
“Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word…” (Ephesians 5:22-26)
In this we have seen several principles which all relate to the ontological priority of man. We see that women must pray, and prophecy with their heads covered as relates to their relation as representations of the Church to Christ, and indeed as wives in their relation to husbands. In fact, we also see that is not on account of the men and the potential temptation that they face that St. Paul speaks, but on account of the presence of the angels. If taken at face value, the argument of “Neither Jew nor Greek, neither male nor female” and the incarnation would contradict these. However, we rather see St. Paul entrench the gender distinction within the liturgical and symbolic practice of the Church. These all reflect the contours of Christ’s work as priest, as bridegroom, as seamless elements stemming from the primal priesthood of Adam through to His own work on the cross and in His resurrection.
The scriptures speak ardently about the nature of the Adamic archetype, the calling to headship, to Kingship, and to the Priesthood. Christ establishes all of these qualities in Himself, relative to His Church. Christ empties Himself for His bride, and guides her, leads her, and presents her “to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any of the such things, but that it would be holy and blameless.” (Ephesians 5:27). Women then, are beckoned to their primordial calling, to be a “helper and stay,” (Tobit 8:6, Genesis 2:18), called to submission to their husbands as to the Lord (Ephesians 5:22) within the relationship as the particular element, just as man submits before God in a position of headship relative to those around Him. It is the man therefore, who brings together the assembly, the community of the faithful, with the family or church as a microcosm of this, and stands ahead of the assembly that as a whole, they make take on a collective feminine role before the Lord.
Liturgically speaking, this is precisely how the bishop and the priest operate. They stand at the head of the congregation, taking as man, as Adam, and indeed as Christ, the collective role of servitude and submission before the Lord, but so too at key points in the liturgy does he notably turn away from the altar to face the congregation, and it is the priest who declares the Shalom, the Peace of God, and the realization of His kingdom. In this we see not only the visible icon of Christ as High Priest, but indeed as the Father whose kingdom is being declared. Only the priest may serve such a function, and it is evident for this heavy multitude of reasons why it must precisely be a man who conducts the work.
This is reflected also in the fact that the relationship between Jesus Christ and the Father is, as a triadological principle. St. Ignatius of Antioch states, “As therefore the Lord did nothing without the Father, being united to Him, neither by Himself nor by the apostles, so neither do anything without the bishop and presbyters.” (Epistle to the Magnesians, Ch. 7). In here we see a direct parallel of Lord:Father – Church:Bishop. Likewise, St. Ignatius describes what the Bishop does in a deeper sense, “Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude [of the people] also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.” (Epistle to the Smyrnaeans, Ch. 8). It is the Bishop, acting in accordance with Adam’s priestly office who brings the multitude together, just as Christ brings the universal, catholic Church before His Father.
This much is true, that when we refer to our priests as “Father,” we refer to a very specific role they play. We do not merely honour them by such a title, but we understand that they are taking on a symbolic role, to which is assigned an archetype of measure. A woman can be a great many things, a mother, a wife, a wonderful counsellor, a saintly prophetess, indeed perhaps a noble ruler or the most austere ascetic, but she cannot be a father. This role goes deeper than functionality, for we can likely think of many women who would be able to provide better homilies, or perhaps better confessional advice, or perform the liturgy better and manage a parish community better. But Christianity of course, is not about such capabilities or capacity for self-determination, but a principle much deeper and essential to our being.
The only question left is whether or not other examples of female witness have any bearing on what has been established. The symbolic distinction between men and women, the sacrificial and liturgical role of the priest, and how these connect to the Adamic principle through to Christ is well-established. Proponents of female priesthood will often bring up such examples as the Theotokos herself, or St. Mary Magdalene, St. Phoebe the Deaconess, or other such examples. Indeed, some among these are called “Equal-to-the-Apostles,” but this does not demonstrate “Identical-to-the-Apostles.”
Christ ultimately selected twelve men of varying moral qualities and worthiness to be his Apostles, notwithstanding the other disciples, male and female that surrounded Him at any given time, and many of whom were more faithful to Him in his last moments than the twelve. And yet, despite this, it was this group of men that was chosen to receive the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, and it was these men who performed the laying on of hands for the Episcopal office to their successors. That is to say, none of the female disciples or any other woman in recorded history of the Church had ever gone so far as to perform the sacrifice of the Eucharist, or take on the liturgical role that priests have. This is not an argument via negativa, but it creates active questions for whether God intended to construct His Church in such a way. It is therefore a tremendously impoverished argument to suggest, once again, that He chose these Apostles in such a way as to elevate the Church in the sociological realities of this time. Had this been a genuine consideration, one wonders why He revealed Himself first to his female disciples at all.
If we take these at their logical conclusion, then we are once again left with the deeply unsettling conclusion of a personalistic nominalism. What matters in this instance is the individual, the ego, which may be realized in a plethora of ways pertaining to their experience of God, with no recourse to their nature, and no recourse to the sense in which we are all created to contribute in submission to God in a collective, ecclesial tapestry. The question then becomes, why any of these things were written in the scriptures at all? If we conclude that it was out of cultural or sociological concern that St. Paul admonished wives to behave in a certain manner, or that women in the Church should have certain roles and a particular sense of dignity, then we have willingly done away with an entire theme of scripture, an entire hermeneutic by which we can understand God. We have willingly blinded ourselves to His expression in the world for the sake of a misguided sense of self-realization.
Conclusion
In conclusion, there are several angles that are taken to argue in favour of a female priesthood. With respect to the arguments leveraged, the “passive” consideration which is most often invoked is a deferential sense of appreciation for tradition while maintaining that there are no convincing theological reasons to reject female priesthood. Typically it stipulates that we can try not to disturb the peace of the Church by broaching the question, but if the Church were to one day decide to ordain a woman to the priesthood or episcopacy, there would be no issue in it. In fact, it is understood that as the Church grows, and comes to ever greater understanding of God and His salvation, then this will come about as a matter of necessity. The underlying assumption here is that women are in fact by their potentia, fully eligible to become priests, and the reason for which they are not differs relatively little from the reasoning for why we do not currently ordain women as deacons, or why in our modern day bishops are exclusively celibate. The divinely-guided nature of the Church is such that these decisions and mode of being, while legitimate from a position of authority, are not expressions of an ontological character, but rather canonical ordering.
The next argument attempts to theologically articulate why it is that women can, and should be priests. Roughly speaking, this argument stipulates that Christ assumed human nature in its fullness, and therefore all of mankind must participate fully in Christ’s symbolic and hypostatic being, including the priesthood. If we reject priesthood for women, it is to say that women are exempt from a full share in Christ. This goes even further than the previous argument, as it stipulates that the Church has not merely taken a legitimate pastoral consideration, but has actively erred in its failure to ordain women. It has fundamentally misunderstood the incarnation, sacramentology, and the priesthood as a concept. This argument fails because it does not adequately appreciate how women embody other principles particular to Christ, and ultimately, does not consider the scripturally and theologically grounded principle of Adamic ontological priority which encompasses all elements of humanity.
This argument is particularly impoverished because of its logical conclusions. In this manner, the role of Eve is not that of woman, or wife, or bride, or any other such principle, but it is merely that of “partner.” There is no reason why Eve should not have been able to perform the priestly functions imparted to Adam except that she was merely the human being that was made second, and the fact of her biology has little to no bearing on this fact except the functional.
The third argument, which I believe to be the most theologically destitute, precisely for the reason that it absolves itself of theological considerations entirely, is the functionality argument. This rests entirely on a rejection of every principle set out in the sacramental tradition of the Church, as it stipulates that the priesthood is merely a position of communal leadership. Therefore, the only reason to reject women as priests is through a misplaced belief that women are inherently less competent for positions of teaching and leadership. As we have seen, this argument relies entirely on a rejection of sacramental metaphysics, and draws fundamentally on a de-sacralized view of humanity, ultimately succumbing to the idea that hierarchies are primarily relations of power, rather than expressions of God’s cosmic order.
We have established that the masculine, operative principle is a crucial quality of the priesthood, since both Adam and Christ provide us with the symbolic archetypes of priesthood by virtue of bringing together creation and offering sacrifice on behalf of all and for all. The “maleness” of Christ as a hypostasis is a critical element, and one that does not negate the relevance of Christ having assumed a human nature in a universal sense, such that the argument of “what is not assumed is not healed” cannot be used to indicate that women can participate in the priesthood.
We can establish that there is an interplay between man qua humanity, wherein women participate in the fullness of humanity, with humanity in general occupying a priestly function relative to creation, or of Israel relative to the nations. It is of this that it is said that;
“…But you shall be called the priests of the LORD; they shall speak of you as the ministers of our God; you shall eat the wealth of the nations, and in their glory you shall boast.” (Isaiah 61:6)
“…And you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.” (Exodus 19:6)
“…But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9).
We can conclude from this principle that the incarnational argument concerning “what has not been assumed has not been healed” has been satisfied. Women fully and fundamentally participate in the priesthood of Christ by virtue of their participation in the common nature. However, as befits the Church, which has been constructed as a microcosm of God’s cosmic order, each individual Christian occupies a particular role within this order, in agreement with their mode of being. Within the sacrament of marriage, for instance, God constructs His natural order of Christ-Church through Husband-Wife. If one were to take the incarnational argument at face value, there is no reason why both the husband and wife of a given marriage could not be interchangeable in their roles. But to adopt this argumentation would be a rejection of St. Paul’s words in every other instance. As a matter of fact, it would be tantamount to rejecting an entire theme of scripture and God’s work, to which the Fathers often apply witness. The thematic ideal of the male-female community is found in the very root and core of Christian community. Per Fr. Thomas Hopko, women are not excluded from the priesthood any more than the Holy Spirit is “excluded” from being the Logos and the Christ.
However, if this is not satisfactory to proponents of a female priesthood, I would question in this instance, where there may be a principle at all for the primacy of the male sex, and where we may see this in the liturgical life of the Church? We have already established that these arguments are not “essentialist” in the sense that Christian anthropology does not, ontologically speaking, preclude women from social roles such as rulership of a nation, or instances where women do in fact teach, practice holiness, and provide pastoral care. Likewise, it is unlikely that there is any formal distinction beyond the merely biological for husbands and wives within a marriage, since functionally speaking, both enjoy an essential and sacramental androgyny that precludes the formalization of roles within a marriage. Now, if the priesthood itself, with all its relevant traditional precedents is a matter of pure abstraction, then the question remains, where is God’s cosmic hierarchy? Is there any application whatsoever of the principles laid out thus far in our ecclesiastical life? What is the functional, precise manner in which wives must “submit” to their husbands, or where is the sense in which we understand that man is the head of woman as Christ is the head of man? Having broken down the essentially male character of the priesthood in a frenzied agnosticism, I challenge proponents of the female priesthood to now explain how we might be able to find the symphonia of gendered hierarchies in the Church, since it is clear from scripture and our patristic tradition that this is an integral element of our anthropology.
Proponents for female priesthood approach the question from a broad contour of considerations, and these vary in their degree of error. Some error stems from a simple misunderstanding or failure to adequately assess the data before us in terms of scripture and the tradition of the Church. Others fall into implied heretical conclusions. They implicitly deny sacramental ontology, key Christological principles, and perhaps even Triadological principles. Above all else, the unifying element of these arguments is the insistence that in participating in Christ, humanity transcends nature to enjoy a sort of spiritual androgyny of being, such that if Christ was to truly assume a human nature, then women’s inclusion in Christ is predicated on their being “woman” having no ontological value. If however, we properly understand unity of being, and indeed the life of the Trinity itself, we are also forced to conclude that the Trinity is not able to participate in common life as long as any constituent element of it does not become identical to the other. In essence, the argument is as absurd as it is to suggest that the Holy Spirit is not truly co-substantial with the Father unless He Himself is the Father.
But to the contrary, we can conclude that in every meaningful and incarnational sense, women are participants in Christ’s salvation in the same measure as men. And it is in this participation, that they are able to access the symbolic contours of every other element of Christian life. Be it far from us to suggest that men are gifted with a superiority, for the priesthood is not the entitlement of any man, and is the condemnation of many. In Orthodoxy, the weight of emphasis is consistently placed on the fundamental unworthiness of any candidate to the priesthood, and it is from this starting point that one should understand their fundamental role. Otherwise, we are forced to conclude that women are the victims of a construct that deliberately precludes them from living a full life of holiness through an illegitimately established power structure that benefits men. While I understand that this angle is acceptable to many proponents of a female priesthood, it is entirely alien to our faith, theology, and tradition, which is abundantly clear that it is a theological impossibility for women to become priests in the sacramental sense.
ἀρχή αθάνατος 