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The Church has traditionally dissuaded the participation
of women as lectors and cantors, following the admonition of St Paul
regarding this matter. St Paul was, in turn, following the tradition of
the synagogue. My grandmother was a presbytera and often served the Divine
Liturgy with my grandfather. This was during the war and there was often
no one else who could perform these duties. My grandmother worked in a
hospital with soldiers wounded in battle. If I can share one story that
she told me - there was a Soviet soldier in the hospital with a wound in
his side the size of two human fists. Owing to the primitive nature of
medicine then and during the war especially, my grandmother followed the
procedure of pouring disinfectant right into the wound, to the poor
fellow's screams of pain. The Soviet officer, wounded as well, lying next
to him said to him, consolingly, "Don't worry, Matushka is pouring
Holy Water over you!" They both received Communion during the Divine
Liturgy when my grandfather served it with grandmother assisting. My
grandmother knew the Liturgy off by heart and recited parts of the
Horologion daily.
The Orthodox Church traditionally does not allow
women into the "Sviatylysche" or Holy of Holies behind the
Iconostasis. When boys are baptized, they are brought around the Altar,
but when girls are baptized they are only brought to the Royal Doors.
Again, when the Epistle is read, it is begun with "Brethren."
Unfortunately, no matter how one turns that term upside down and rightside
up, it is a masculine term. If I may offer my own personal view, let us
remember that, in this century, Orthodox women have defended the Church in
a way men did not. Under the Communist Yoke, women not only continued to
attend Church and raise their families in an Orthodox Christian spirit
while men joined the party, but women (including professionals like
doctors, dentists and lawyers) also participated in political action to
reclaim Orthodox Churches that were taken by the authorities. Until 1991,
85% of the Orthodox faithful in Ukraine and Russia have been women. There
was a time in Russia when a bishop signed the agreement with Patriarch
Sergius and the Soviet government. The women in his diocese were so upset
that they went up to him after the Liturgy, but instead of reverencing the
Cross, they actually spit on his shoes, one by one! An Orthodox
underground bishop, when he heard of this, exclaimed, "Women did
that? Thank God for our Orthodox women. If it were not for them, who would
defend our Church?"
I believe it is time that women be allowed fuller
liturgical participation in the Church - it is already happening without
my saying so. Women have always participated in the Life of the Church in
all other ways. Let us remember that, in Christ, there is neither man nor
woman!
Dr. Alexander Roman
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