Posted on 12/06/2007 10:20:13 AM PST by NYer
The bishop looks like an old diesel dyke!
“Then, in a startling development, the rigidly traditional Greek Orthodox church decided in 2004 to restore the order of the diaconate for women, citing authoritative sources that the church had ordained women as deacons at least through the Middle Ages.”
I wonder if these women have any idea what the Church of Greece was doing when it decided this. Trust me, it doesn’t even come close to being useful to them.
Within the Orthodox Church women were (are) ordained as deaconess for one reason: they are nuns in a monastery and serve at the altar due to the fact that the only male allowed to enter the monastery is the priest. At one time it was more common to have deaconess, not at the altar, but to teach other women (and children) about the Church. And that was due to society thinking that males and females shouldn’t be alone together. Even today in many parishes males are on the right side and the females on the left in church.
"One day she said to her husband, after a frustrating experience at a local parish, “You know, the only way we’re going to find a church we like is to start one of our own.” He looked at her seriously and said, “You’re right,” she recalled.Oh, goody! Protestants!
My understanding was that none of the Orthodox Churches were ordaining women, was I incorrect?
“My understanding was that none of the Orthodox Churches were ordaining women, was I incorrect?”
The Synod of the Church of Greece has approved the reinstitution of the female diaconate after its disuse for well over 1000 years but I don’t know if any women have actually been ordained to it yet.
One has to understand that this diaconate is fundamentally different from anything the West has ever seen. It is limited as to who is eligible and most especially what they can do and where. It never did and never will lead to the priesthood or even the sort of male diaconate one sees in Orthodoxy or the Latin Church. Frankly, the reinstitution of the female diaconate in the East will hinder the development of this sort of Western lesbian “priestesshood” since it demonstrates quite graphically the limited role women played in an ordained capacity in the early Church. They of course played a major role in other capacities.
The so-called deaconesses of the Patristic Church were just the wives of Deacons. It wasn’t an ordained position, in the liturgical sense, but merely one of service. Thus, the lesbian womenpriests of some “Catholic” communities, would not be satisfied, because they want to be front and center on the altar.
So typical of the Jesuits. My dad knows a woman whose daughter goes to a local Jesuit university. She is majoring in psychology. Her professor told the class that the most “balanced” male is a male that is BISEXUAL! Her daughter didn’t say anything. At this point I would have said something or walked out of class. No need to bay over $20,000 a year to be taught that crap.
This paper has NO BUSINESS calling itself Catholic. It comes much closer to the Metropolitan Community Church which is a church that is promotes liberalim. Fittingly, one of the “ordinations” was done at one of these churches. I know they have already excommunicated themselves, but the Vatican needs to cut off all ties by publicly excommunicating them from the Church. If they want to be “priestesses”, they’ll have to start their own church.
LOL! Oh I remember that!
“The so-called deaconesses of the Patristic Church were just the wives of Deacons. It wasn’t an ordained position, in the liturgical sense, but merely one of service.”
Well, yes and no. The deaconesses in the East were either unmarried virgins over 40 or 45 or widows. They were “ordained” in a service but never taken inside the altar and had no liturgical role whatsoever. What they did was minister to sick women and children and catechise and prepare women for baptism. It seems to me that they also acted as cleaning ladies in the temples. In many senses they were like nuns but out in the world, nuns being properly in monasteries.
The acolytes live at a “Catholic Worker” house.
Surprise?
In the Eastern Sense, that would not be a welcome role by these lesbian goddess worshipers.
I am just going to assume that that there is a difference in terminology and Theology here, because in the West a Deacon is an Icon/conforms himself to “Christ the Servant” hence the being invested with the Gospels....therefore cannot be female.
I will assume that the Diaconettes are in fact closer to the lay orders of “reader” or some other such position.
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