Women in the Altar

           In my experience, when feminists look for sticks with which to beat the Orthodox Church as old, outdated, and misogynistic, as well as making reference to our well-known refusal to ordain women to Holy Orders, they often also refer to our prohibition against women entering the altar (i.e. the area behind the icon-screen, the space containing the Holy Table).  “Not only can women not be ordained in your church,” they say, “they can’t even enter the altar area.”  By making this observation the feminists are really asking the question, “What’s wrong with you guys anyway?”  In a day when almost all other churches have women clergy who stand at the altar table and preside as priests, our prohibition against women even entering the altar area utterly mystifies them.  So, what’s the deal?  What does the customary prohibition against women in the altar mean?

            Admittedly some Orthodox attitudes about women in the altar do make Orthodoxy something of a hard sell with the world.  I think of a story of one clergyman saying that a female iconographer working in his church could paint the icons in the altar area, but only after the Tabernacle containing the Reserved Gifts was removed, and of a story of clergy forbidding women to enter the altar anytime for any reason whatsoever, even to clean it on a Friday afternoon.  Is it true that women, as women, have always been absolutely forbidden to enter the altar area for fear that their presence there would somehow defile it?

            Well, no actually.  In the early church from about the third century anyway, deaconesses were ordained for their specifically feminine ministry, and they were ordained at the altar.  The early church therefore had no problem with a woman being in the altar, provided she had a reason to be there.  St. Gregory the Theologian even praised his mother, St. Nonna, for having ended her earthly life, “clinging to the altar table”.  (This last example was cited by the OCA Department of Religious Education publication, Women and Men in the Church, in 1980.)

            So where does the prohibition come from?  In part at least, it comes from canon 44 of the Council of Laodicea, held in about the mid-fourth century.  Said canon simply reads:  “Women may not go the altar”, without giving any reason or rationale for the prohibition.  Presumably everyone at Laodicea then knew the context and therefore the rationale for the decision so that it didn’t need to be spelled out.  A hint about what that reason might have been can be gathered from canon 69 of the so-called “Quinisext” Council—i.e. the canons appended in 692 A.D. to the fifth and sixth ecumenical councils held earlier.  That canon reads, “It is not permitted to a layman to enter the holy altar, though in accordance with a certain ancient tradition, the Imperial power and authority is by no means prohibited from this when he wishes to offer his gifts to the Creator.”   This canon prohibits any laity from entering the altar, though it makes an exception for the Emperor, who customarily entered to altar to make his own gift.  (Being Emperor clearly had its privileges.) 

            It would seem that certain people from the laity were in the habit of entering the altar area, probably because they felt that such a public show would add to their prestige.  Canon 69 forbids this, and says that no one should enter the altar area during the service unless there is a liturgical reason to do so.  (We note in passing that the ordination of deaconesses at the altar, in places where deaconesses existed, would have constituted such a liturgical reason.)  Consistent with this, I suggest that in Laodicea, certain women were also in the habit of entering the altar area for reasons of prestige.  Human nature being what it is, I suspect that these were rich women who wanted to enter the altar to flaunt their wealthy and important status, and the canon 44 of Laodicea forbids it because the desire to flaunt one’s importance is not a valid reason to enter the place set apart for liturgical worship.

            So, the abiding teaching of the Church seems to be that no one, man or woman, may enter the altar during Liturgy unless there is a valid and liturgical reason for doing so.  Women in Laodicea then and universally now, not having a liturgical function of serving at the altar, have no reason to enter it during Liturgy.  This interpretation of the prohibition is consistent with the present custom of women monastics helping the priest in the altar during Liturgy when the priest serves in a women’s monastery:  there being only women in a women’s monastery, sometimes nuns serve with the priest to hand him the censer, prepare the zeon, and perform other duties.  (I am told that they do so unvested—i.e. not dressed as subdeacons or acolytes in a stichar, but simply in their usual monastic habit.)  This shows that the canonical custom is less about women as women, as it is about function and necessity.  In all this, the Church’s concern is not to keep down the women out of a spirit of misogyny, but rather to preserve the dignity of the altar as a place of liturgy and prayer.

The People's Pascha

            At the end of October in 1840, the celebrated author Hans Christian Andersen (famous for his fairy tales) left his native Denmark for an extended trip in the east.  He wrote about his travels in his book A Poet’s Bazaar: a Journey to Greece, Turkey and Up the Danube.  Andersen was an experienced traveller, who had visited Italy some years before.  In his latest memoir, he compared his experiences of Easter in both Rome and Greece in the following words:

            “The Catholic Easter in Italy, especially in Rome, is wonderful, fascinating!  It is an uplifting sight on the vast square of St. Peter’s to see the whole throng of people sink to their knees and receive the Blessing.  The Easter Festival in poor Greece cannot be celebrated with such splendor.  But having seen both, one comes to the conclusion that in Rome it is a festival which, in its splendor and glory, comes out of the Church to the people; whereas in Greece it is a festival which flows out from the hearts and minds of the people—from their whole way of life—and the Church is only one link, one strand.”

            Sometimes outsiders can see with greater clarity and objectivity than insiders can, and I think that in this case the non-Catholic and non-Orthodox Andersen was onto the something.  Andersen appreciated both the Catholic and the Orthodox Paschal celebrations, but he thought that the Catholic one “came out of the Church to the people”, whereas the Orthodox one “flowed out from the hearts and minds of the people”.  In other words, both Easter festivals were like the churches which celebrated them, the Catholic Easter manifesting the clericalism which characterized the Catholic Church, and the Orthodox Pascha manifesting the popular spirit which characterizes Orthodoxy.  In the Orthodox Church, Pascha “flows out from the hearts of the people”.  Clergy are involved, of course, since they too are part of the holy laos, but Pascha is primarily the people’s Pascha.

            This popular spirit of Pascha reveals something fundamental about the Church’s life, namely the reality that St. Paul calls “the koinonia of the Spirit” (2 Cor. 13:14, Phil. 2:1).  The Greek term koinonia eludes easy translation.  It is sharing, fellowship, joint participation, communion, an experience of the Spirit which is shared by all the faithful and which binds all of them together.  In Phil. 2:1 St. Paul groups it together with “encouragement in Christ”, “incentive of love”, and “affection and sympathy” as inspirations and reasons for maintaining unity within the local church. 

            This is why it is so important for a community to travel together, with a sense of mutual belonging.  We define ourselves not just in terms of our relationship to Christ, but also in terms of our relationship with one another; we serve Christ as our Lord, but as members of a particular community, as fellow-communicants with Sam and Suzy and Vladimir and Antonios whom we see at the Chalice every Sunday.  It is as a community that we journey through Lent; it is as a community that we experience the power and intensity of Holy Week.  It is as this same community that we finally arrive together at our Paschal goal.  Our weekly Sunday attendance at Liturgy and our annual experience of Great Lent and Holy Week all combine to meld us into one body, allowing us to experience the koinonia of the Spirit, and it is as this united body that we experience Pascha.  Pascha “flows out from the hearts of the people” as Andersen noted because the koinonia of the Spirit has knit our hearts into one.  The priest prays for this at the conclusion of every Anaphora:  “grant that with one mouth and one heart we may praise Your all-honourable and majestic Name”.  After Holy Week has come to its climactic conclusion on the following Sunday, this prayer is abundantly answered, as the people’s Pascha flows out from this one heart.  Andersen saw this when he visited “poor Greece” well over a century ago.  It can be seen even today in Orthodox parishes throughout the world.

      

Holy Thursday: Feasting in the Shadow of Death

           There are certain disadvantages to knowing how a story ends.  This is true in the case of our Gospel story:  we know that the story ends in triumph, and joy, and Resurrection.  This knowledge tends to blunt our sensitivities as we read along, and cause us to miss certain things in the flow of the narrative before it comes to its end.  In particular, we miss the main element of the story of the first Holy Thursday, which is fear.

            As we read the Gospels two thousand years later and many miles away from its original time and place, we tend to imagine that Galilee was more or less the same as Judea.  Both regions are just names to us—names of Biblical Places, which because they are Biblical have a certain holy feel to them.  We therefore miss the fact that for the Lord and His Twelve, they were not alike at all.  Galilee in the north was a place of safety, while Judea in the south was a place of danger, and for this reason they were reluctant to enter Judea at all.  Thus, when Christ suggested to the Twelve that they leave Galilee to visit Lazarus in Bethany in the heart of Judea, they were less than enthusiastic.  In fact, they were incredulous:  “Rabbi,” they protested, “the Jews were but now seeking to stone You, and are You going there again?” (Jn. 11:8)  It seemed stupid and suicidal.  When Christ said that He was determined to visit Lazarus because he had fallen asleep, they assumed that by this He meant normal slumbering sleep, and concluded that there was therefore no need to visit him—“Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover” (Jn. 11:12).  In other words, “no need go south to Bethany”.  When the Lord explained that Lazarus had died and that He was still determined to go to him (v.15), they naturally concluded that He was speaking of joining him in death.  Thomas displayed courage when he roused the others to risk death to accompany their Lord, saying, “Let us also go, that we may die with Him” (v.16).  In all these exchanges we see how dangerous Judea was for Christ—and Jerusalem was the epicenter of that danger.

            Our Lord’s foes down there were actively seeking to kill Him (see Jn. 8:40), so that His entry into the city of Jerusalem had to be secretly pre-arranged with passwords.  (That was the whole point of the mysterious exchanges mentioned in Mk. 11:2-6).  Other signs and passwords guarding secrecy were later required to pre-arrange a place in the city where the Passover meal could be eaten (Mk. 14:13-16).  Our Lord’s foes, humiliated time and again by Christ as He taught that week in the Temple, could not risk arresting Him openly in the midst of the festal crowd (Mk. 14:1-2).  They were desperate to find Him alone, far from the safety and protection of the public eye, for only then could they safely arrest Him without being stoned by His crowd of supporters.  And that was why they rejoiced when Judas secretly offered to supply them with the information of His whereabouts, and even act as a guide for them, for that was the only way they could get Him alone and defenseless.

            We must fully appreciate this atmosphere of danger as we read the story of the Last Supper on that Holy Thursday.  The place upstairs in someone’s home had been secretly secured and made ready, and the Lord went there with His disciples without being seen.  Everyone at that supper knew that our Lord’s enemies were scouring the city to find Him, and that they would arrest and kill Him if they did.  The excitement generated in the city which began when our Lord entered in triumph had reached its fever pitch now that everyone was keeping the Passover, for everyone was expecting the coming of “the kingdom of our father David” (Mk.11:10), and Passover was the perfect time for that kingdom to come.  Surely something had to give—it was time for either Christ or His enemies to triumph.

            This atmosphere of almost unbearable danger and impending crisis was further deepened by he events of the Supper itself.  It was, as the Synoptics make plain, a Passover meal (Mk. 14:12, Lk. 22:13-16), with cups of wine, and bread, and the Passover lamb itself.  Certain prayers and blessings, such as the blessing over the bread and the cup, would have been said, as at every Passover meal.  But Christ added other words to these customary blessings:  as He broke the bread at the beginning of the meal, He said, “Take; this is My body”.  And after the meal, during the third cup, the “cup of blessing”, He added the words, “This is the blood of the covenant which is poured out for many”.  The words were dark and cryptic and alarming.  As the bread was between their teeth, as the wine flowed over their lips, the disciples heard words identifying the bread and wine with His body and blood, broken and poured out.  The Passover feast of life and joy and freedom was becoming a feast of darkness and death.  They of course could not understand all that the words meant, but they understood well enough that it spoke of His death.

            Other words were less cryptic, and even less encouraging.  During the meal, He said that one of them would betray Him—one whose hand was even then eating with them at the festal table.  And He said that He would not drink another cup of wine until the Kingdom had come (Mk. 14:18, 25).  St. John’s Gospel draws the veil aside even further, and tells us that He openly spoke of leaving them (Jn. 13:33), of weeping and lamentation, and of His enemies’ rejoicing (Jn. 16:20), of them all being scattered and leaving Him alone and defenseless (Jn. 16:32).  The Passover meal was meant to be a time of light and hope for every Jew, a time when they gloried in God’s love for His people, and looked to His deliverance.  The disciples ate that meal in shadow and fear, darkened by a coming doom.  We know how the story ends, and how Holy Thursday was followed by Great and Holy Friday, and then again by Pascha.  But we must not import our hope prematurely into the narrative lest we misread the atmosphere of that first holy supper.

            And that is just the point:  in the midst of darkness and fear, grace took root and blossomed, and has since filled the world with its saving fruit.  The supper of death (like the Cross of death) has become the supper of life.  The Last Supper has become for us the Mystic Supper, and the place where the disciples cowered has become a place of joy and exultation.  For us the Supper is a place of light, of triumph, a place where all fear is banished, and where life chases away every trace of death.

            This is the abiding lesson of that night.  We are sometimes tempted to imagine that God saves us from fear and from danger, that He rescues us by not leading us into places where we are afraid to go.  We desperately want Him to exempt us from being in such dark places, and from experiencing terrible things.  We do not want to go to Judea, we do not want to enter Jerusalem which always kills the prophets (Mt. 23:37).  We do not want to have to endure the tragedies of life, and would at all costs avoid the valley of the shadow of death.  But God leads us there nonetheless, and there He is with us and prepares a table, even though we eat in the presence of our enemies (Ps. 23:4-5).  God does not exempt us from suffering.  He does something better and more wonderful:  He meets us there, and reveals His grace.

            Maybe it’s not so bad after all knowing how the story ends.  For if we know that Holy Thursday gives us the Eucharist and ends with Pascha, maybe we can better face the suffering we have to endure.  This dark and dangerous world need not steal our hope or diminish our joy.  In the midst of the darkness, we lay hold of bread and cup, and give thanks, and find Christ and His Kingdom.

           

A Tough Week

            These words were lately used by the President to describe the week beginning Sunday April 14.  The week saw acts of terrorism in Boston, and a tragic fire and explosion in Texas, compounding the other challenges with which life is often filled.  Boston also experienced the emotional roller-coaster of lockdown, manhunt, shoot-out, and arrest.  A tough week indeed.  The words, however, could equally well describe another week long ago, which was also filled with emotion, fear, and death. 

            I refer of course to the last week of our Lord’s earthly life.  It began with His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, when the whole city exploded with joy and celebration, hailing Him as King Messiah, and anticipating the imminent coming of the Kingdom and the overthrow of the Roman occupation force.  Our Lord’s adversaries, and the Romans, then went on high alert.  Christ entered and took command of the Temple, clearing out the sellers who set up their tables in the only space there reserved for the Gentiles, and who effectively turned the House of God into an eastern bazaar.  After this, He endured challenge after challenge, as one group after another confronted Him, some in open hostility and some with feigned admiration, all of them trying to refute and humiliate Him.  Tension grew with each confrontation.

            The week was filled with danger, since it was well known that Jesus’ foes had recently tried to stone Him, a fate which He narrowly escaped (Jn. 11:8).  For this reason His entry into the city had to be secretly pre-arranged, as did the place in the city where He would eat the Passover meal (Mk. 11:1f, 14:12f), for if He left the safety of the public crowds, He risked arrest and execution (Mk. 14:1-2).  That Passover meal, eaten with the Twelve in secrecy, was marked by fear.  He predicted that one of them would betray Him, that He would have to leave them, that they would all deny Him and leave Him alone.  As they ate the bread at the beginning of the meal, and as they drank the cup of wine afterward, He declared the bread and wine to be His body and His blood, broken and poured out.  They did not know what it all could mean, but they knew talk of death when they heard it.

            Then came the catastrophic night of betrayal and arrest, when one of their own inner circle acted as guide to His enemies, and when they all forsook Him and fled.  Peter, initially trying to prove himself brave, tagged along later at a distance, only to find himself denying Christ over and over again, as the Lord had predicted.  While the disciples scattered and cowered, their Lord was being tried and mocked and beaten by His own people at an illegal all-night trial.  When daybreak came, He was handed over the Pilate.

            One might have expected the famous Roman justice to win the day.  It did not.  Pilate found himself out-manoeuvred by the Sanhedrin, forced to choose between condemning an innocent Man and being denounced to Caesar for supporting an insurrection.  He took the obvious political choice, and washed his hands.  The deal collapsed whereby Jesus might be found guilty and still released as part of the Passover amnesty:  the terrorist Barabbas was released instead, and Jesus delivered to be scourged and crucified.  By three o’clock in the afternoon it was all over.  Jesus hung dead on the cross, beaten, disgraced, abandoned by almost all.  His adversaries were triumphant.  For them it was the most satisfying Passover in a long time.  But not for the disciples of the Lord.  For them, it was a tough week.

            This review of the first Holy Week can help us through our own tough weeks, for it teaches us that God does not save us from fearful suffering and death, but reveals His salvation in the midst of it.  The fear-suffused and dark Passover supper would be later revealed as the eternal and joyful Mystic Supper, as the meal of death became the meal of life.  The moment of supreme defeat and disgrace on Golgotha would become the cosmic victory of God, when He worked salvation in the midst of the earth.  This shows that all our suffering can be transmuted into joy, if we wait on God.  Dark days may tempt us, calling us to despair, to give up on God.  Judas gave up:  he took a rope and hanged himself.  We must not give up.  Despair called to Peter too, for after he denied his Lord time and again, he went out and wept bitterly (Mk. 14:72).  But he did not finally heed the call to despair.  Despite his almost unbearable pain, he persevered, and waited and did not give up.

            With God it is always worth the wait.  Christ came to Peter and restored him, accepting his repentance and calling him to once again take up his apostolic calling and leadership.  He came to all the disciples, forgiving them, gathering them, healing their hearts and breathing His Spirit into them. Holy Week may have ended with the Cross on Friday and the Tomb on Saturday.  But it gave way to the Resurrection on Sunday, the first day of the week and a sign of the timeless eighth day of eternity.  As we go through our life and endure tough weeks, let us continue to wait on God.  When day dawned that first Resurrection morn, all the pain of the past week faded with the passing darkness.  So it will prove for us.