Why the Orthodox Church does not ordain women

“and I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence. For Adam was formed first, then Eve.”

1 Timothy 2:12

The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese is planning to hold a webinar on “female religious leadership” featuring women from other faiths. According to the press statement from the “Orthodox Times”, a source that has been seriously compromised on other issues, “many faiths have a complex relationship with female leadership.” It is apparently being inferred that the Orthodox Church should ordain women.

During liturgical services, Orthodox Christians recite the Nicene-Constantinopolitan creed which includes the declaration that “I believe in One Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.” Orthodox means “correct belief” and “correct worship”. Orthodox was a term used to defend the Church and its truths from heresies and sects that deviated from the truth of the Holy Gospel. The statement put forward from the Orthodox Times makes mention of women in secular history who achieved great things.

This however is not relevant to the Orthodox Church. With all due respect to the guests who will appear on the Archdiocese’s webinar, what their own faiths do and teach is not relevant to the Orthodox Church. The Biblical passage cited above from Saint Paul should be enough to terminate any discussion on possibly ordaining women.

As we are aware, Saint Paul was converted to Christ on the road to Damascus when he received a vision that caused him to lose his sight and also heard the voice of Jesus speaking to him. The persecutor of Christians formerly named Saul became the Apostle Paul who embarked on an extraordinary journey to spread the Gospel and endured beatings and torture before being martyred during the first century AD. Saint Paul’s great authority was recognized by the Church when it included his many Epistles in the canon of the New Testament.

Christ himself called twelve disciples to follow him, all of whom were male. On previous occasions, advocates of a female priesthood have sarcastically said that the Apostles were all Jews as well. Yes, but when Paul and the Apostles converted the Greeks, Romans, and others to Christianity the priesthood was conferred upon men who were not Jewish. Gentiles were ordained to the priesthood while women were not, and this is an important fact.

Women were not present at the Mystical Supper and so from the very beginning the right to celebrate the eucharist was conferred upon men. There is no record of women in the earliest days of the Church protesting or feeling “excluded”. The Most Holy Theotokos, the most important woman who has ever lived enjoys great honor in the Orthodox Church because she became the “God bearer”.

Mary, the blessed Mother of God is honored in several feasts of the Church throughout the calendar year. This includes the feast of the Annunciation, the feast of the Dormition, as well as feasts including her conception, birth, and presentation in the Temple by her parents Joachim and Anna. In the Orthodox Church, we have the service of the Paraclete when we pray to the Mother of God in times of distress and difficulties and ask for her intercession on our behalf with her son and our God. The Mother of God was a creature as we all are and also being the “God bearer” she is uniquely suited to act on our behalf with her son who is God.

It is preposterous to suggest that the Orthodox Church has a “complex relationship with female leadership”. The Orthodox Church has countless female Saints which are honored and who are prayed to. Countless female Saints have been martyred and have lived lives of piety. Female Saints include Saint Catherine who with her education confounded the philosophers as well as Saint Mary of Egypt. Saint Mary was once a great sinner who by repentance and a life of devotion achieved Sainthood and is recognized during one of the Sundays of the great fast.

In addition to the long list of female Saints, the Orthodox Church has female monastics. When during the history of the Church have any female Saints or monastics ever advocated for the ordination of women? They have not. Women in the history of the Church have always spoken up against heresy.

During the iconoclastic crisis which lasted from 726 AD until 843 AD when the Emperor and the Patriarch were smashing and destroying icons, women were protecting them and venerating them. Women in the Church resisted and opposed heresy. They did not advocate for the ordination of women because such an idea would have been properly construed and condemned as a heresy.

The ordination of women is a heretical idea foreign to the faith of the Orthodox Church. It is an idea whose roots are found outside the holy scriptures, sacred tradition, the holy fathers, and Church history. It is an idea emanating from the errors of modernism.

Modernism and secularism seek to challenge the sacred and divine origins of the Orthodox Church. The Orthodox Church was founded by and is headed for all time by the incarnate logos and word of God Jesus Christ. The holy orders of the Orthodox Church which include the offices of bishop, priest, and deacon can be traced to the era of the New Testament Church.

The Orthodox Church has triumphed over persecution by the pagan Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Communists. The enemies of the Church have been conquered by the power of Christ. Yet, there are those secularists who would imply that the Church has been discriminating against women while simultaneously defeating her persecutors and miraculously transforming societies.

Modernism does not assist the Church in her sacred functions and divine mission. Modernism seeks to hinder the salvific mission of the Church by attempting to mix holy tradition with secularism. Modernism created problems in the Orthodox Church by changing the calendar in some local Churches and introducing ecumenism and other ideas foreign to Orthodox ecclesiology.

Advocates for the ordination of women are indifferent to the complex and unnecessary divisions that continue to plague the Orthodox Church since they were introduced in 1923. The advocates of this modern heresy have displayed a non Christian tendency for narcissism. Putting their own secular interests and ideas above and beyond Jesus Christ and holy tradition.

The Orthodox Church does not ordain women because of fidelity to the Gospel, apostolic succession, and holy tradition. Neither Christ, nor the apostles, nor the holy fathers who followed the apostles, nor the male or female Saints who have given their lives to the Lord either through martyrdom or devotion to the monastic life, or the bishops and priests who carry on their sacred work under the guidance of the holy spirit have expressed any desire to overthrow sacred tradition as certain sectarians are now doing.

What other faiths do is of no concern to the Orthodox Church. We have watched what has happened to the Episcopalians and various Protestant factions. The destructive paths they have taken by not only ordaining women, but in permitting same sex marriages, and promoting transgender ideology only demonstrates that these entities were never part of the “Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.”

The Orthodox Church adheres to holy tradition, not political correctness.