It is undoubtedly clear that this blessed conference in
the memory of Metropolitan Anthony is based on these versus
from the Gospels by Matthew and Luke. It is equally certain
that we believe that the light of Christ was transmitted to
us through the eyes of Metropolitan Anthony, and we gather
times after times to elucidate our human conditions
according to his teachings.
The reason on which we build our belief is that
Metropolitan Anthony had his eyes focused solely on Christ
as the prototype of Man and the “image of the Light and
Glory of God the Father” at once. Deeply and solidly rooted
in the Holy Tradition of the Fathers of the Church and their
experience and interpretations of the teachings of Christ,
Metropolitan Anthony interiorized them and summarized them
and was gifted to reformulate them in the language that
could speak to us today in our present contexts. He was able
to do that, because he was eager to see that the message of
Christ would reach us in our present realities.
This eagerness brought him closer to the concrete
realities of the world today; on one hand as a medical
doctor he could diagnose the ailments that stood between us
and the Word of God, on the other hand as a priest (in the
image of Christ) he looked with empathy, love and compassion
at our aliments. The obstacles he taught us to recognize are
derived from the worldly traditions. I recall that he gave
to one of the Diocesan Conferences that took place during
his life with us the theme of “Tradidion and traditions.”
Fr John Meyendorff writes on the subject:
“One of the most basic problems facing theologians today
is knowing how to discern between the Holy Tradition of the
Church- the expression adequate or appropriate to Revelation
- and the human traditions which express Revelation only
imperfectly very often, which even oppose or obscure it.”
For whereas our worldly traditions echo our conflicting
interests and games of power, the Holy Tradition moves us
into the direction of our resemblance to Christ, in love
instead of iniquities and in abnegation instead of greed.
Indeed, going back to the versus of the Gospels quoted above
the texts continues
“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are
healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your
eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of
darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how
great is that darkness! No one can serve two
masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or
you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You
cannot serve both God and money.” (Mt 6:22-24).
Metropolitan Anthony choosing to serve God, taught us to
be free from our human traditions built on greed for
material things, yet without ignoring or despising our
reality and its human needs. He taught us to see, to
recognize and accept our human limitedness which he dealt
with in compassion and patience. These were the reflections
of the mystery of the Incarnation, God took “the very nature
of a servant, being made in human likeness, and
being found in appearance as a man,” (Ph 2:7-8) he was
loving to mankind. Societies are stronger than individuals
and each one of us is a product of a specific culture and
civilization of this world; yet in as much as we choose to
see, identify and recognize the image of God engrained in us
at our Baptism we can free ourselves from the world impact
and slavery and treat our ailments.
I needed this introduction to the subject of my talk
entitled “Learning to see Women in Christ” because we know
that the beauty – and as well the ugliness – is in the eye
of the beholder. We have witnessed that the eyes of
metropolitan Anthony were beholding the newness of the
Gospels. What did we learn from Metropolitan Anthony with
regards to seeing?
In answering this question, there is, it seems to me, a
set of key approaches or attitudes of the soul that we could
have learnt from him.
It is through these three points of the teachings of
metropolitan Anthony that we can address now the issue of
women as seen by Christ and the Holy Tradition amidst our
earthly traditions. The newness of the Gospels and our
faithfulness to the presence of God in our hearts and minds
will enable us renew the attitude of the world towards the
partners, men and women, in the spirit and the will of
Christ.
A quick overview of the relations between men and women
over the past centuries of human history presents great
discrepancies in the way women are looked at and treated in
the various cultures and civilizations. Earthly traditions
recognizing that women were the womb of life erected men as
the guardians of this life by the power of their muscles and
their material welfare, men were providers of women’s means
of subsistence and their protectors. Accordingly, men
formulated and passed laws that emphasized the weakness of
women and their obligation to submit to the will of their
protectors. This reading of women presents two major
ailments: the first a woman is reduced to her biological
function neglecting her full humanity, as in the soul, the
heart, the mind and the existence of her personal body and
personal talents; the second is denying the contributions of
women in the life of the world, in as much as history and
men would acknowledge their participation. Here is no place
to argue about this reality, suffice it to say that 1946
years after the coming of Christ the secular world, inspired
by the equal dignity and freedom that Christianity spread in
the world reached at declaring that all human beings are
equal regardless of sex. Today this declaration is
struggling to erase from the minds of human beings the
supremacy of men. Whereas the developed world has started
recognizing her professional contributions and her
individuality, the rest of the world still holds her in
various forms of custody, while churches in the world abide
by a mixture of spiritual and cultural attitudes towards her
role in the community.
For us Christians, there is a different way to learn to
see the presence of women in the world.
There is no room in this short paper to review the
history of women in the life of the Church and in the
various traditions of the churches. However, we who have
been privileged to have encountered contemporary Fathers,
Confessors and Teachers of the Orthodox Church can in the
light of their guidance and teachings elucidate a way of
learning to see and read the presence of women so that the
“will of God be done.”
Our point of take off is the Gospels, the Word of God in
Christ and in his attitude towards women of his society.
ntroduction
to the book of Elizabeth Behr-Siegel (an eminent 20th
century woman theologian), on the ministry of woman in the
Church as he refers to the “Creation of the undifferentiated
total Man, containing all masculinity and all femininity;
this man (anthropos) which is Christ. God reveals the whole
of the human being and not the aspect of virility for “what
has not been assumed has not been saved” (as the principle
of Chalcedon 451 stated). According to St John of Damascus,
“The human nature as a whole, both male and female, has been
assumed by the incarnate Logos… The Incarnated Word is the
archetype of humanity, the image of perfection of all human
beings, male and female.”
The Son of God is the archetype of man and woman, the
Incarnated Logos became “the beginning of a new essence”,
the second or “the new” Adam, which means the one and
undivided human being” (See: The priesthood of women, A look
at Patristic Teaching by C. Yokonaris, in the book Orthodox
women speak, WCC publications, Geneva, 1999).
This unity is confirmed by Saint Paul, the Apostle in his
Epistle to the Ephesians: “Wives, be subject to your own
husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the
wife, and Christ also is the head of the assembly, being
himself the savior of the body. But as the assembly is
subject to Christ, so let the wives also be to their own
husbands in everything.”
“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the
assembly, and gave himself up for it; that he might sanctify
it, having cleansed it by the washing of water with the
word, that he might present the assembly to himself
gloriously, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing;
but that it should be holy and without blemish. Even so
husbands also ought to love their own wives as their own
bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself. For no man
ever hated his own flesh; but nourishes and cherishes it,
even as the Lord also does the assembly; because we are
members of his body, of his flesh and bones.
“For this cause a man will leave his father and mother,
and will be joined to his wife. The two will become one
flesh. This mystery is great, but I speak concerning Christ
and of the assembly.”
The worldly reading of this passage focuses on the
obedience of the woman and the godhead of man, to which
ironically metropolitan Anthony would say if he is the head
, she then is the neck and could turn this head into
whatever direction she pleases. Learning to read this
passage with the eyes of God, Christians are invited to
focus on the verses that refer us to the relation between
Christ and the Church, “Husbands, love your wives, even as
Christ also loved the assembly,” and gave himself up for it
“they become one flesh” when man fulfils the condition of
being the savior of the body in the image of Christ who gave
us His blood to wash humanity from all its blemishes. The
apostle confirms this oneness in the flesh by saying “The
two will become one flesh. This mystery is great, but I
speak concerning Christ and of the assembly”. For men and
women the submission is only to the likeness of God revealed
to us by Christ.
At the relational level, Christ inaugurated a new meaning
of love, “There is no greater love than to give one’s life
for the other,” as for the meaning and the value of love
between a man and a woman, Christ has inaugurated a
completely new understanding. Christ moved the human heart
and mind from the love that is desire, want, possession that
takes and consumes the other until annihilation and slavery,
to the love that is all giving and giving again; giving unto
dying for the life of the other. This is fulfilled in the
Love of Christ for the Church and reflected in his behavior
and attitudes with women.
This unity of the body represented by Mary, the woman par
excellence and the Holy Spirit , who is Christ in her womb,
is the new learning to see Women. No male , no female,
neither body nor souls in the Life in Christ, we are to
learn to see that wwe are rather energies of love Divine in
as much as we are ready to die and obey one another in our
journey to achieve our resemblance to Him in whose image we
were created.
The Gospels portray Jesus as someone that not only spoke
and interacted with women, but also treated women with
compassion, dignity, and respect. Men of the time generally
did not publicly speak or interact with non-related women,
yet Jesus publicly spoke and witnessed to women, even lowly
foreign women. Jesus expected a faith response from women
just as he did from their male counterparts. Jesus was truly
revolutionary in his treatment of women.
In the Judean culture of the time, the testimony of women
didn't count, yet it was women that testified of Jesus’
Resurrection. The Jewish religious elite believed that women
in general should not be taught the Torah, yet Jesus taught
Mary, the sister of Martha. A woman was considered
untouchable (unclean) during menses, yet Jesus showed
compassion to the woman with the issue of blood who touched
the hem of his garment.
It is significant to see in the Gospels that most of the
acts of mercy that Jesus has operated during His life with
or for women were in answer to their faith and their hope in
him.
Learning to see woman in Christ, means learning to
recognize her dignity at all levels of her person.
The respect He had for her mind was unprecedented. With
Him women conversed, questioned and obtained more than the
answers they could expect, they were given the truth of the
Revelation. Mary the Mother of God argued with the Angel:
said, “How shall this be, since I am a virgin?” (Lk 1:34).
At the answer of the Angel: “Do not be afraid, Mary, You
have found favor with God,” Mary surrendered, obedient in
faith to the word of God, “I am the servant of God. May it
be to Me as you have said.”
The second conversation is the one that took place
between Christ and the Samaritan woman at the well. A
serious argumentation that ended by revealing to this alien
woman the true Divine nature of He Who was asking her for
water and who proved to her that He was closer to her than
herself. She believed in Jesus and in turned eagerly
witnessing to the townspeople (Jn 4:25).
At the Resurrection of Lazarus which was called upon by
the faith of his sisters, Mary and Martha. “Martha then said
to Jesus, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not
have died. 22Even now I know that whatever You
ask of God, God will give You.” Jesus said to her, “Your
brother will rise again.” Martha argued, “I know
that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last
day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection
and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he
dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me
will never die. Do you believe this?” She said
to Him, “Yes, Lord; I have believed that You are the Christ,
the Son of God, even He who comes into the world.”
(Lk 11:21). It is to the faith of Martha and Mary believing
that had Jesus been there, their brother would have not
died, that Jesus reveals His full Divinity: “I am the
resurrection and the life.”
The respect He had for her feelings, sicknesses were met
with infinite compassion and understanding. The Gospels
describe two miracles of Jesus raising persons from the
dead. In both incidents the dead are restored to women—to
the unnamed widow from Nain her only son (Lk 7:11-17) and to
Mary and Martha their brother Lazarus. Among the things
considered defiling (disqualifying one for the rituals of
religion) was an issue of blood, especially menstruation or
hemorrhage. One such woman had been plagued with a flow of
blood for 12 years, no one having been able to heal her. She
found the faith in a crowd to force her way up to Jesus,
approaching him from behind so as to remain inconspicuous,
and simply touching his garment (Mk 5:27). When she did, two
things happened: the flows of blood stopped and she was
discovered. Jesus pressed his inquiry and the woman
identified herself and declared to the crowd the blessing
that had come to her. Jesus treated her as having worth, not
rebuking her for what the cultic code of holiness would have
considered as having defiled him. Rather, he relieved her of
any sense of guilt for her seemingly rash act, lifted her up
and called her "Daughter." He told her that her faith saved
her, gave her his love, and sent her away whole (Mk 5:34).
To the Syro-Phoenician woman who fell down at his feet
asking him to drive the demon out of her daughter. He
responded to her : "Let the children first be fed, since it
isn't good to take bread out of children's mouths and throw
it to the dogs! But as a rejoinder she says to him: "Sir,
even the dogs under the table get to eat scraps dropped by
children!" Then He said to her: "For that retort, be on your
way, the demon has come out of your daughter." She returned
home and found the child lying on the bed and the demon gone
(Mk 7:25-3). The answer of Jesus is shocking to our worldly
code of politeness, but Jesus knows the faith of that woman
and wanted her to profess it to the world at the expense of
his being rather rude to her.
Mary Magdalena as in Luke (10:38-42) is depicted as a
devoted disciple who ignores the taboos of her society in
her commitment to Jesus. Sitting at his feet as a disciple
(Lk 10:39) was not the place for a woman, but she is
commended by Jesus (Lk 10:42). Now she acts in an even more
scandalous manner in anointing Jesus' feet with extremely
expensive perfume and then wiping them with her hair (Jn
12:3). Both aspects of her action - the extravagance and the
method - were disturbing to the eyes of the world. There is
no indication of why Mary did this act. Learning to see with
the eyes of Christ here is what we find.”
Whatever Mary's intentions and reason for her action,
Jesus sees it in reference to his coming death. There is no
reason to think Mary knew the full import of what she was
doing, any more than Caiaphas knew what he was saying
(11:49-51). The people around are acting for their own
reasons, yet they are players in a drama that they do not
understand, doing and saying things with significance beyond
their imaginings. "Mary in her devotion unconsciously
provides for the honour of the dead. Judas' shock at the
waste of such costly ointment makes us more aware of Mary's
extravagance.
Judas' heart is thus fundamentally different from the
heart of Mary as she lavishes her love and respect upon
Jesus; here we have the contrast between a true disciple,
Mary, and one of the Twelve, which shows that privilege of
position is no substitute for faith and obedience.
In Saint Luke’s Gospel, Jesus accepts the courage and
impulsiveness of this sinner woman who did the anointing.
Here also he has a different reading to her act” Do you see
this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any
water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and
wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but
this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing
my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured
perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins
have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever
has been forgiven little loves little.” Then
Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
In conclusion, “Learning to see Women in Christ” is to
have the eyes of Christ, healthy eyes that makes our life
filled with light. It is putting our understanding and
hearts in unison with the very words of Christ, praying to
the Holy Spirit to develop in us the courage that makes us
stand if need be in opposition to the old game of power that
opposed men to women.
Christ rehabilitated her faith; indeed He has
recognized women to be capable of faith in many instances.
For instance He declares to the sinner, “Your faith has
saved you, go in peace” (Lk 8:50).
To the Canaanite woman He answers, “O woman, great is
your faith! Be it done for you as you desire”(Mt 15:28); and
to the bleeding woman, “Take heart, daughter, your faith had
made you well” (Mt 9:22). He rehabilitated her against the
expectations of society: He refrains from judging the
adulterous woman, going against norms of the times and the
society crossing thus the “wall of enmity” He talks to a
Samaritan, for it was known that Jews do not speak with
Samaritans!
At last but not least He rehabilitated her role in
society and gave her the mission to announce His
Resurrection. Jesus Resurrected did not ask Mary at the tomb
to go and call his disciples men, to reveal His resurrection
to them, but rather He sent her to do that, “Go and tell
them.”
I shall revert to the concluding words of St. Paul (Coll
11, 17), “As woman was made from man, do man is now born of
woman, and all things are from God.”
- “But now that faith has become, we are no
longer under a custodian, for in Christ Jesus you
are all sons of God, through faith. For many of you
as were baptized in to Christ have put on, Christ.
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither
slave nor free, there is neither male or female, for
you are all one in Christ!” (Ga 3:28).
The question becomes then: How much are men and women in
our churches striving together toward the Kingdom of God,
and how much are we still rooted and imprisoned in our
worldly tradition? Are we progressing towards the Kingdom of
the power of love or perpetuating the old human game of
power?
The question of women’s power, place and role in the
Church becomes the first question of a series of questions,
aiming at evaluating our faithfulness to the project of the
Kingdom (that we pray it arrives) where both women and men
are equally welcomed and recognized.
