The Iconic Character of the Sacramental Priesthood
by Fr. Shnork Souin
A recent report out of the WCC in (HARARE, ZIMBABWE, DEC 8 {ZENIT}) reports the withdrawel of some Orthodox Churches from the World Council of Churches and cites fears also that other Orthodox shall withdraw from the World Council of Churches (WCC). The World Council of Churches, with a membership of 332 Christian Churches Anglicans, Lutherans, Reformed and Orthodox (The Catholic Church has never been a member) is meeting on the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary.
The reason for the withdrawel according to Reverend Fr. Hilarion Alfeyev, of the Russian Orthodox Church is because of "a painful reality we cannot endure." Reverend Aleyev mentioned the two critical problems between the Orthodox world and the WCC: the ordination of women and inclusive language, issues far removed from Orthodox tradition and regarded as a model by the WCC. The Orthodox although composed of various jurisdictions, comprises a minority in the WCC. To stress that point, the moderator of the meeting, His Holiness ARAM I, of the Armenian Orthodox Church, denounced the minority situation of the Orthodox within the organization, as well as the ideology and activities the WCC which he classified as "Protestant and Western."
It is for this reason that I would like to engage in a discussion as to what the Orthodox view of ministry and priesthood is in view of her Tradition vis a vis the "Protestant and Western" ecclesiology that "controls and directs" the WCC and modern Christendom.
"Those...who ordain women as ministers...are not however creating priests, but dispensing with priesthood altogether."
-Archbishop KALISTOS (Ware)
As modern Christianity struggles not to buckle under the strain of mass apostasy taking the form of so many ugly heresies and distortions, not the least of which is the denial of revelation and the rejection of the Holy Scripture in Tradition as normative in manners of doctrine, ecclesiology and church practice, the Churches of the East, particularly the Orthodox Churches, are faced by the danger of an imported agenda of women's ordination to the priesthood, an agenda that has been adopted by the greater part of Western and Protestant Christendom and taken as a fait accompli by the WCC.
The Orthodox Church, at least in Europe and in North America, need unfortunately therefore to address this concern in an effective, informed and Christian basis so as to insure her very continuation as the "bride" of Christ that breathes the "life of the Holy Spirit in time," while compassionately and pastorally tending to the concerns and questions of women for whom true "liberation" is possible only through their profound participation in the Church.
In order to define the parameters of the subject of women's ordination to the priesthood, I must first emphasize that the Church in fact does not owe an apology nor an explanation for her continued practice of withholding ordination from women. The unbrokenness of the church's life is based solidly in the Holy Scriptures, as the crown of the church's Tradition. These same writings, being the very Word of God given to us through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to "guide us into all truth" and for all time in unbroken continuity, never speak of the possibility of women being ordained to the pastoral ministry but antithetically forbid such a ministry.
The Orthodox Church will stay faithful to the "high view" of scripture as the only alternative hermeneutic. No other option, regardless of its fashionable reception by the "modernism" and Higher Criticism, with the WCC as its platform, can be considered when discussing these issues. Because the Fathers have always reiterated and exposed the scripture in this light, as the very "God Breathed" and infallible Word of the Almighty, the burden of proof lies squarely on the shoulders of those who will deny the validity of what the Church has believed by everyone, everywhere, for always. Fr. Alexander Schmemann, of blessed memory, an eminent Orthodox scholar, said that the ordination of women to the ministry/priesthood is, throughout history, the one greatest transgression of the Vincentian Canon. The Church Fathers and Holy Councils reaffirm the practice of ministry as possible solely to some males who by virtue of their ordination by a Bishop become the icona tou Christou the icon of Christ.
In order to maintain the unanimity of Orthodox theology, Fr. Alexander Schmemann writes: "women's ordination must be seen and discussed within the scriptural doctrine of men and women (Orthodox anthropology)...and not within the perspective of `human rights,' or `equality'."(1)
The church of Holy Tradition can and should discover the truth concerning the invalidity or impossibility of the ordination of women to the pastoral ministry in their numerous avenues of pursuit available to her in treating this issue, from the exegetical, anthropological, practical, socio-ecclesial, the order of creation, and so on. There are today important Orthodox theologians and theologiennes that support the ordination of women to the priesthood. Elisabeth Behr-Sigel, an Orthodox theologienne and proponent of the ordination of women to the priesthood, says citing Acts 1:14 that as: "All these with one accord devoted themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus" so to should the Church allow for women to assume a place of equality within the authority and hierarchy of the church. Her argument follows the context as established by St. Paul in Galatians: For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ" (Galatians 3:27-28).
The church has never and would never call into question the equality of women with men in the Ordo Salutis or the membership in grace and salvation. Calling men and women equal in this sense is understood in light of their particular "modes of being and different ways of living in which the various members of the community are to live...reflecting the trinitarian being and life of God, with one common will and operation," "one heart and soul" (cf. Acts 4:32). Unfortunately for Madame Behr-Sigel the same scripture passage (Gal. 3:27-28), according to Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. 1.13.) was cited by the "gnostic Marcosians in whose sacramental rites a woman consecrated the cup of Charis." The Quintillians also in like manner "appealed to Eve as the prototype of their female clergy," according to Epiphanius (Adv. Haer 49.1-3). These movements were not only rejected by the church but condemned as heretical.
The Universal Church of Christ has never looked to neither of Eve nor St. Mary the Mother of God nor any one else either male or female as the paradigm of priesthood other than Christ. Because of the broad scope and breadth of the ramifications of women's ordination and the far reaching consequences of the church's response to it, this paper not accidentally focus' specifically on the holy priesthood as an Icon of Christ. The examination of the priesthood in this light will hopefully show that the ancient practice of ordaining only certain males to the holy priesthood was not and is not an arbitrary practice evolving out of a patriarchal culture that deliberately demeans the role of women in the church.
To hold such a view would intimate that Christ was impotent against the fabric of society, the so-called patriarchal hierarchy of ancient Israel and Rome. Christ's actions were not done in the context of a patriarchal society but in fact "in the fullness of time." Christ did not bow to earthly authority or patriarchy but rather spoke boldly and authoritatively with the hierarchy of His time both secular and religious(cf. Mat. 7:29, Luke 4:32).
The Roman Catholic Church in October 15, 1976 published the document Declaration on the Question of the Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood (Inter Insigniores) which I believe is an important and helpful resource for the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church in better grasping the importance of viewing the role of priest as icon or symbol of Christ. It attacks at the core the permeating denial in "liberal" Christianity that "maleness has any symbolic value as part of the sacramental sign."(2) It will be argued that it is precisely the ordained priest that "mediates the presence and salvific action of Christ in the Church and in its worship and giving apt symbolic expression to that presence."(3)Sara Butler states that the "Scholastics appealed first to the testimony of scripture and tradition and second to the function of priest as a sign of Christ," sacramentally representing a "natural resemblance." It is in this image of Christ that the priest pronounces the words of consecration, during the Eucharist. I will deal more fully with the issue of the Eucharist later as it is the key to the function of the priest's role as the icon of Christ.
Christologically, Sara Butler posits that "the maleness of Christ cannot be ignored" as it is an historical fact and is "symbolically linked to the whole revelation." She calls the story of salvation as accomplished by Christ in history, a "nuptial mystery." She asserts that clearly Christ's love for the church is analogous to the love of a husband for his wife, laying down His life for His Bride, the Church. Again this fact will have important implications for the celebration of the Eucharist, which without any apology is the centre of the Church's life, and not second in importance to mission or evangelism or any such thing, but primary.
It is therefore specifically in the Incarnation of God, in who's particular masculinity dwells all the natural characteristics of a true humanity, that He expresses love in sacrifice over against the misoanthropous feminist argument that the male image is one of authority and primacy. No man should dare boast in his `gift' of ordination and service to Christ and His Church as if it were a right or something earned to the exclusion of women or any uncalled man. No one could nor ought to feel worthy of such a humbling vocation. In calling to repentance the one who thinks he/she offers faithful service and represents worthily as it were Jesus' sacrificial love, ought to read with the Fathers of the church in the preparation to offer the Eucharist, who say in regards to merit or worthiness;...none of us who are bound by carnal passions and desires is worthy to approach thy Table or to minister to thy royal glory; for to serve thee is great and fearful even to the heavenly hosts.(4)
Sara Butler's argument, in her treatment of the word symbol, specifies Christ as "head" Kephale and bridegroom of the church, his body. Her premise for this debate is that she rightly accuses the feminists who deny that symbolically Christ is neither head nor bridegroom. If the Church, as referred in the Scripture, is the Bride of Christ, then she is symbolically represented as female and thus, in the natural order of creation, which unfortunately in today's society is somewhat blurred with the Gay rights and same sex rights movement, her Bridegroom is male as is none other than Christ who is liturgically represented by the "male" priest. I would suggest that in keeping with these Scriptural symbols, a female priestess would necessarily and symbolically constitute a lesbian relationship since Christ and the Church form one Body, a "nuptial" consummation. This should not be shocking to anyone's ears inasmuch as we have all heard of so called gay church communities being ministered to by gay pastors.
It seems, unfortunately, that the contemporary concept of "symbol" is misunderstood, depreciated to a function of that which is in fact opposite to what is "real." In Orthodox theology as in all Eastern, Hellenic perception, "the symbolic is a profound and integral factor in that epistemological process, conscious and unconscious, in which the human being finds meaning."(5)It is not coincidence that this strikes us as a plainly Platonic concept, but, of course, "a radical distinction between symbol and reality would have been foreign to those sharing the world view in which the early Church was developing her doctrine and discipline."(6)To argue against this way of thinking claiming that the priest would then be categorically equated to Christ during the Divine Liturgy would be as foolish as saying that the bread and wine are categorically equal to Christ's divinity The dual presence of the corporeal and incorporeal are understood by the Orthodox, Christologically viz. the two while not being changed altered divided, confused, are "consubstantially" present are united "personally" or hypostatically without separation and without change. To the Orthodox way of thinking thus, the bread and wine become the symbol of the reality which IS the "very living and life-giving Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ." The Eastern Churches consider it shameful that the West looking for precise definitions of "symbol," in her sacramental theology, reduce the concept to mere imagery and illusion. It was this dialectic in the age of Scolasticism and even earlier in the debates between Luther and Zwingli that led to unfortunate and even tragic consequences, namely, on one hand the Catholic understanding of the doctrine of Transubstantiation that Schmemann calls; "truly the collapse, or rather the suicide, of sacramental theology", not allowing the bread and wine to serve as symbols of the reality present. The denial of the "real presence" in Zwingli's theology, on the other hand, is a complete rejection of not only Orthodox theology but specifically the Churches doctrine of Christ. The denial of the very sacramental presence the very Body and Blood of Christ in a most profound way. Fr. Alexander Schmemann in observing the tradition of the Fathers says; "symbolism is the essential dimension of the sacrament, the proper key to understanding...the world is symbolical in virtue of its being created by God...the symbol being not only the way to perceive and understand reality, a means of cognition, but also a means of participation."(7)
Before proceeding farther, it is important to realize what the Orthodox Church understands by its use of the word Icona "Icon" without getting into the tedious historical unfolding of the theology of the Icon. Bp. Kallistos Ware gives five qualifications that should be noted regarding the priest as icon of Christ, namely;
1/ An icon is in no sense identical with that which it depicts.
2/ The priest as icon is not like an actor made up to look like Christ.
3/ According to the principal of St. Basil, we do not honour the priest "in and for himself," but rather, the honour is referred to Christ.
4/ Icons make present a reality that surpasses it, but of which it acts as a sign or symbol.
5/As an icon of the "unique high priest Christ, the ministerial priest must be male."
Bp. Ware mirrors his words with Fr. Schmemann's who said; "If the bearer, the icon and the fulfiller of that unique priesthood is a man and not woman, it is because Christ is man and not woman."(8)Suffice to say that when Orthodox Christians use the word Icon they "normally do so in the sense that these realities make present and actual the realities which they embody because of their natural competence and capacity to do so."(9)The reality in the case of priesthood as icon is Christ Himself. The Bishop or Priest is therefore the sacramental image of Christ and is as such "the living and active presence of that reality."(10)
As we are challenged to discover the validity of this model, (priest as Icon of Christ) in defending our Orthodox Church's refusal to ordain women to the priesthood, we discovere that a "reductionist" or functional view of ministry could not and cannot be possible. What I am referring to in practical terms is that Protestantism has shifted the focus of "church" from the altar table to the pulpit, from God to congregation, and thus demoting the sacraments "to a secondary rank in popular estimation and practice."(11)
The previous point leads into a discussion on the concept of royal priesthood of believers. It is true that by our baptism and incorporation into Life and the Body of Christ, we, both male and female alike, are called upon to be receptive servants to the will of God. The dominant example given by the Church in regard to the paradigmatic expression of the perfection of the royal priesthood is St. Mary the Mother of God herself, who "was never a priest in the ministerial sense."(12)
The example of the Theotokos, the ancient order of Widows, Virgins or Deaconesses are not appropriately applied to the sacramental priesthood. Scripturally, St. Paul baldly makes the point in the Pauline exclusions in both 1 Cor. 14:34-35 and 1 Tim.2:11-12. The Orthodox Church has always had a canonical Diaconate open to women, "blessed and authenticated by the Church, linked to the priesthood of the altar, as a complementary ministry, yet distinct from it."(13) The treatment of such is beyond the scope of this paper but, there is a movement afoot in Orthodoxy to restore this noble calling for women. It should be understood that there is a sharp distinction in the diaconate and the priesthood. Both, in Orthodoxy, are 'sacramental' ordinations. It is never given to the deacon to consecrate the Eucharist nor to bless people or things. The ordination of women to the diaconate has unfortunately fallen into disuse from about the 12th century in the east. If this "order" were made available again for women, the church could eliminate the unfortunate "clericalism" that plagues her today.