Women in the Altar - Fr. Lawrence Farley addresses some misconceptions

In my experience, when feminists look for sticks with which to beat the Orthodox Church as old, outdated, and misogynistic, as well as making reference to our well-known refusal to ordain women to holy orders, they often also refer to our prohibition against women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, that is, 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 in 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 the story of clergy of forbidding women from entering the altar any time 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 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 were ordained at the altar. The early Church, therefore, had no problem with the women 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,” as he said.
So where does this 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 to 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 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, the council that appended in 692 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 the altar to make his own gift. Being an emperor clearly had its own privileges.
It would seem that certain people from the laity were in the habit of entering the altar area, probably because they thought 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 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 entered the altar to flaunt their wealthy and important status, and that Canon 44 of Laodicea forbids it because the desire to flaunt one’s importance is not a valid reason to enter a place set apart for liturgical worship.
The abiding teaching of the Church seems to be that no one—man or woman—may enter the altar during the 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, during the Liturgy. This is the interpretation of the prohibition, and is consistent with the present custom of women monastics helping the priest in the altar during the 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, to prepare the zeon, and to perform the other duties. I am told that they do so unvested, that is, not dressed as subdeacons or as 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 women out of a spirit of misogyny, but rather to preserve the dignity of the altar as a place of liturgy and prayer.


Source:
transcript & Audio

http://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/commentaries/women_in_the_altar

Excerpt from Why Sola Scriptura Doesn’t Work

Saint Augustine describes the type of person fit for the proper study and understanding of scripture on Christian doctrine. Fr. Whiteford summarizes for us in this helpful tract saying that such a person

One: Loves God with his whole heart and is empty of pride.
Two: Is motivated to seek the knowledge of God’s will by faith and reverence rather than pride or greed.
Three: Has a heart subdued by piety, a purified mind dead to the world, and neither fears nor seeks to please men.
Four: Seeks nothing but knowledge of, and union with Christ.
Five: Hungers and thirsts after righteousness, and
Six: Is diligently engaged in works of mercy and love.

Absent from this description in Saint Augustine is the kind of PhD a person has acquired, the university that granted it, or a mastery of the finer points of ancient near-Eastern history. While all these things are great in their own right, they neither guarantee nor even suggest that a person with that sort of experience is equipped to understand the scriptures as part of Holy Tradition. Without rejecting scholarship we must be careful to balance scholarship with the necessary holiness, piety and mystical union with Christ which can only take place in His body, the Apostolic and Catholic Church of the interpreter.
If we truly believe that the scriptures are divinely inspired by the Holy Spirit then their right understanding can only be the result of theosis or deification. If our salvation is an acquisition of the Holy Spirit, as Saint Seraphim of Sarov says, then with that acquisition comes the mind of God, a mind that is attuned to the breath of the Spirit as he breathes through the life of the Church.
The Church is not some other competing academic institution alongside seminaries and universities. Those led astray by the academy can be tempted to subvert tradition for the sake of, let’s say, academic merit-badges. But rather than pitting the Church against the scholarly community, we must learn to appreciate both in their proper context, reminding ourselves that the qualities of a true interpreter of Divine Revelation are more related to holiness than they are to academic credentials. If a scholar’s primary goal is to blaze new trails, be controversial or directly subvert Holy Tradition, they are not seeking the mind of Christ.
The Church is the very body of Christ as 1 Corinthians 12-27 says. If it is the fullness or the pleroma of God as it says in Ephesians 1:23, and as Paul writes in 1 Timothy 3:15, it is the pillar and ground (or foundation) of truth.
It is only in the life of that mystical, theanthropic, or divine human communion, that a person can ever hope to acquire this mind, and to both read and understand the scriptures rightly as the precious summit and anchor of God’s revelation to His people.


Source:

full transcript and audio
http://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/commentaries/why_sola_scriptura_doesnt_work

Quote by St. Maximos the Confessor

Even if the whole universe holds communion with the [Latinizing] Patriarch, I will not communicate with him. For I know from the writings of the holy Apostle Paul: the Holy Spirit declares that even the angels would be anathema if they should begin to preach another Gospel, introducing some new teaching.

+ St. Maximos the Confessor, The Life of Our Holy Father St. Maximus the Confessor (Boston: Holy Transfiguration, 1982)


Source online:

http://orthodoxchurchquotes.com/category/sayings-from-saints-elders-and-fathers/st-maximos-the-confessor/

Quote by St. Maximus the Confessor

“Inasmuch as you pray with all your soul for the one who has slandered you, so much will God reveal the truth to them who have believed the slander. “

– St. Maximus the Confessor, Chapters on Love, 4.89

Quote by St. Maximus the Confessor

“A soul that is nurtured by hatred toward man can not be at peace with God, Who has said: If you forgive not men their sins, neither shall your Father forgive your sins (Matt. 6:15). If a man does not want to be reconciled, you must at least guard yourself from hating, praying with a pure heart for him, and speaking no evil of him.”


+ St. Maximus the Confessor, Chapters on Love, 4.35


Source online:

http://orthodoxchurchquotes.com/category/sayings-from-saints-elders-and-fathers/st-maximos-the-confessor/

Quote by St. Maximos the Confessor

“He who gives alms in imitation of God does not discriminate between the wicked and the virtuous, the just and the unjust, when providing for men’s bodily needs.”


– St. Maximos the Confessor, First Century on Love, No. 24

Quote by St. Maximos the Confessor

“You should know that you have been greatly benefited when you have suffered deeply because of some insult or indignity; for by means of the indignity self-esteem has been driven out of you.”


– St. Maximos the Confessor

http://orthodoxchurchquotes.com/category/sayings-from-saints-elders-and-fathers/st-maximos-the-confessor/