Were There Deaconesses in Egypt? (original) (raw)
Deaconesses from early church to modernity
2018
From the 19 th and early 20 th century, a worldwide movement began that would challenge and uproot everything that man had previously thought. That movement is now known as firstwave feminism, and since then, we have had two more waves with the fourth wave being driven by new social media platforms. 1 This global trend has influenced every aspect of our lives and has entirely redefined the socio-political landscape. This process has even infiltrated various religious organizations, and overturned the laws that had been held for millenniums. And today, it is knocking on our doors. Why does the Orthodox Church not ordain women? What do we have against women anyway? This is the question that I wish to expound on in this paper. Alexander Rentel points out that the first steps in dealing with canonical problems is to examine the appropriate canons within their historical context, aiming to understand how they were historically applied, and then constructing their application for the modern context. 2 Furthermore, in light of Rentel's suggestion, the corpus canonum of the Church is understood "as the written law and the civil law and liturgical practice as authentic exemplars of practice and custom." 3 And that true comprehension can only be gained when examined through the entire life of the Church with Christ as both its beginning and its end. 4 For these reasons, I have chosen to analyze the Apostolic Constitutions, the canons of the Councils, Justinian's Novels, and the Barberini Euchologion. The goal will be to draw out insights and perspectives that the early Church had towards ordination in general, and the ordination of women in particular. I will then follow up with some contemporary discussions surrounding this topic with an effort to gauge the general sentiment in the Orthodox community regarding the ordination of women.
A Study of Women and Convent Life in Coptic Orthodox Egypt Report from a Minor Field Study
2003
This study deals with the interrelations between gender, religion and society in the context of contemporary Coptic Orthodox Egypt, with a focus on Coptic nuns and convent life. In the wake of religious revitalization in today’s Egypt, Muslim as well as Coptic, monasticism has strengthened its position in the Coptic culture. New religious institutions have been established for women and an increasing number of women choose to live a monastic life. The study explores in what way women’s choice to live a convent life is related to the situation of Coptic women in society. By discussing from the approach of female agency, constraints and possibilities for individual action and gender role patterns, answers are sought to the question why women opt for monasticism. The values and virtues in monasticism correspond to established values in society such as values of purity and virginity. Women who choose a monastic lifestyle fully embrace these values, and are hence enjoying a position that...
FULL PROGRAM of the INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SYMPOSIUM Deaconesses: Past -Present -Future
The person of Deaconess Phoebe in the Work of Church Fathers and Ecclesiastical Writers in Early Christianity Dr. Eirini Artemi (A post doc. Phd and MA, Academic Teacher in Israel Institute of Biblical Studies in Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Lecturer in Hellenic Open University and Academic Teacher in the Orthodox University of Kinshasa- Congo) Abstract Phoebe was introduced to Ephesian Christians by Paul as an important helper of his colleagues. In this paper, we will analyze how Phoebe is presented in the writings of Church fathers and Ecclesiastic writers in the Early Christianity. In these texts, there is the question if Phoebe had been an officially appointed deacon or minister of the church at Cenchrea. It should be underlined that the interpreters of Bible were quite unwilling to describe women ministers using specific ecclesiastic terms as deacon and the same thing have to do with Phoebe. Origen underlines that the role of Phoebe is ministry one of assisting people and exercising hospitality as Lot in the Old Testament. John Chrysostom praises St. Phoebe’s work and calls her as saint and holy person and give emphasis to her work. Also, Chrysostom mentions Phoebe elsewhere, referring to her as an official deaconess. Theodoret of Cyrus refers the name of Phoebe three times in order to speak for her ministry of the topical church. Was the role of Phoebe in these texts presented inferior than it was, because the Church writers follow the general idea for the position of women in the society and in the Church? Or do they afraid of creating different problems with the active role of women in ecclesiastic communities?
The Disappearing Deaconess, Preface, EREMÍA PUBLICATIONS
The Disappearing Deaconess, 2021
The main body of this book is my master’s thesis completed in 2017 at the University of Winchester. The thesis made significant contributions to the scholarship on both deacons and deaconesses by analyzing the appearance and disappearance of deaconesses in light of the Church’s teaching on male and female and of changes in other Church offices. The book consists of the thesis with a few very minor changes, plus two important appendices that broaden the scope of the book to include both the current issue of deaconesses and the larger issue of male and female as understood by the Orthodox Church. Appendix B is “A Public Statement on Orthodox Deaconesses by Concerned Clergy and Laity,” signed by fifty-seven Orthodox clergymen and lay leaders and released January 15, 2018. This statement was drafted by me with Fr. Alexander F.C. Webster and Fr. Peter Heers as a response to the Patriarchate of Alexandria’s disputed blessing of women for church service in the Congo and to a subsequent public statement in support of these new “deaconesses” issued by several “Orthodox liturgists” on October 24, 2017. Appendix A is the text of my remarks at a conference on “Renewing the Male and Female Diaconate” organized by the St. Phoebe Center for the Deaconess, held in Irvine, California, on October 7, 2017. These remarks go further than both the thesis and the public statement at Appendix B by outlining a theological basis for the distinction of male and female as the key to understanding the natural and economical relationship of the man and the woman, including, among many other issues, the exclusion of women from clerical orders. A fuller presentation of this “theology of gender” is part of my doctoral dissertation, entitled Origen’s Revenge: The Greek and Hebrew Roots of Christian Thinking on Male and Female, which will be published later this year by Pickwick Publications, an imprint of Wipf and Stock.
2011
From 1854 to the present, Egyptian Evangelical and Coptic Orthodox women have gained a variety of new leadership roles within their respective churches. The reason for the expansion of their roles within their minority communities can be traced to several factors: innovations in female education and employment in the Evangelical Church by foreign missionaries and a subsequent counter-reformation movement in the Orthodox Church; the improvement of female education and vocational opportunities in the public sphere and the gradual permission of the Churches to grant women responsibilities commensurate with their qualifications; and the desire among the Christian population to create a minority social sphere parallel to that of the mainstream Egyptian society. In general, whenever the Evangelical or Orthodox Church expanded its activities and the scope of its services, women were able to take advantage of this expansion to secure new roles and responsibilities for themselves. Certain restrictions on women's leadership remain in both the Evangelical and Coptic Orthodox Churches. Despite these restrictions, however, Christian women have become increasingly visible and influential leaders within their Churches over the course of the 19 th and 20 th centuries.
M.A. Thesis Arab Studies, Georgetown University, 2011
From 1854 to the present, Egyptian Evangelical and Coptic Orthodox women have gained a variety of new leadership roles within their respective churches. The reason for the expansion of their roles within their minority communities can be traced to several factors: innovations in female education and employment in the Evangelical Church by foreign missionaries and a subsequent counter-reformation movement in the Orthodox Church; the improvement of female education and vocational opportunities in the public sphere and the gradual permission of the Churches to grant women responsibilities commensurate with their qualifications; and the desire among the Christian population to create a minority social sphere parallel to that of the mainstream Egyptian society. In general, whenever the Evangelical or Orthodox Church expanded its activities and the scope of its services, women were able to take advantage of this expansion to secure new roles and responsibilities for themselves. Certain restrictions on women’s leadership remain in both the Evangelical and Coptic Orthodox Churches. Despite these restrictions, however, Christian women have become increasingly visible and influential leaders within their Churches over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Deaconesses: A Tradition for Today and Tomorrow, ed. John Chryssavgis, Niki Papageorgiou, Marilyn Rouvelas and Petros Vassiliadis (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press), 2023
Important for the re-institution of the order of deaconesses is the evidence of ancient Christian art that demonstrates women taking a far greater role in the liturgy than previously thought. This art portrays Christian women at church altars and the altars have crosses on them. This chapter details pre-600s art portraying women at church altars in both East and West. Previously published in ΘΕΟΛΟΓΙΑ, 2020, “Χριστιανές γυναίκες στην Αγία Τράπεζα: Αρχαίες μαρτυρίες για την ανασύσταση του θεσμού των Διακονισσών.”