{"id":1684,"date":"2017-11-04T12:55:51","date_gmt":"2017-11-04T09:55:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/?p=1684"},"modified":"2017-11-04T12:55:51","modified_gmt":"2017-11-04T09:55:51","slug":"al-schmemann-we-are-all-called-to-be-priests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/1684\/al-schmemann-we-are-all-called-to-be-priests\/","title":{"rendered":"Al. Schmemann, We are all called to be priests"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Edited with emphasis in bold and italics by Ellopos Blog<\/a>]<\/p>\n

The very idea of women’s ordination as it is present and discussed today is the result of too many confusions and reductions… It is indeed almost entirely dominated by the old “clerical” view of the Church and the double “reduction” inherent in it: the reduction on the one hand of the Church to a “power structure”; the reduction on the other hand of that power structure to clergy. To the alleged “inferiority” of women within the secular power structure corresponds their “inferiority,” i.e., their exclusion from the clergy, within the ecclesiastical power structure. To their “liberation” in the secular society must therefore correspond their “liberation,” i.e., ordination, in the Church.<\/p>\n

But the Church simply cannot be reduced to these categories. As long as we try to measure the ineffable mystery of her life by concepts and ideas a priori alien to her very essence, we literally mutilate her, and her real power, her glory and beauty, her transcendent<\/strong> truth, simply escape us…<\/p>\n

The non-ordination of women to the priesthood has nothing, absolutely<\/em> nothing to do with whatever “inferiority” we can invent or imagine.<\/p>\n

In the essential reality which alone constitutes the content of our faith and shapes the entire life of the Church, in the reality of the Kingdom of God<\/strong> which is perfect communion<\/em>, perfect knowledge, perfect love<\/em> and ultimately the “deification” of man<\/em>, there is truly “neither male nor female.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

More than that, in this reality of which we are made partakers here and now,<\/em> we all\u2014men and women, without any<\/strong> distinction\u2014are “kings and priests,” for it is the essential priesthood of the human nature and vocation that the Christ has restored to us.<\/em><\/p>\n

It is of this priestly life, it is of this ultimate reality that the Church is both gift and acceptance. And that she may be this, that she may always and everywhere be the gift of the Spirit without any measure or limitations, the Son of God offered Himself in a unique sacrifice, and made this unique sacrifice and this unique priesthood the very foundation, indeed the very “form<\/strong>” of the Church.<\/p>\n

This priesthood is Christ’s, not ours.<\/em><\/strong> Not only have none of us, men or women, any “right” to it, but it is emphatically not one of the human vocations analogous, even if superior to all others. The priest in the Church is not “another” priest, and the sacrifice he offers is not “another” sacrifice. It is forever and only<\/strong> Christ’s priesthood and Christ’s sacrifice,<\/em> for in the words of our Prayer of Offertory, “it is Thou who offerest and Thou who art offered, it is Thou who receivest and Thou who distributest…” And thus the “institutional” priesthood in the Church has no “ontology” of its own. It exists only to make Christ Himself present<\/em>, to make His unique Priesthood and His unique Sacrifice the source of the Church’s life and the “acquisition” by men of the Holy Spirit. And if the bearer, the icon, and the fulfiller of that unique priesthood is man and not woman, it is because Christ is man and not woman…<\/p>\n

Why? This of course is the only important, the only relevant question, the one that no “culture,” no “sociology,” no “history,” and even no “exegesis” can answer. For it can be answered only by theology<\/strong> in the primordial and essential meaning of that word in the Church, as the contemplation and vision of the Truth itself<\/em>, as communion with the uncreated Divine Light.<\/em><\/p>\n

It is only here, in this purified and restored vision,<\/strong> that we might begin to understand why the ineffable mystery of the relationship between God and His creation, between God and His chosen people, between God and His Church is “essentially” revealed to us as a nuptial mystery, as the fulfillment of a mystical marriage; why, in other terms, creation itself, the Church herself, man and the world themselves, when contemplated in their ultimate truth and destiny, are revealed to us as a Bride, as a Woman clothed in the sun; why in the very depth of her love and knowledge, of her joy and communion, the Church identifies herself with one Woman<\/strong> whom she exalts as “more honorable than the Cherubim, and beyond compare more glorious than the Seraphim.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Is it this mystery that has to be “understood” by means of our broken and fallen world, which knows and experiences itself only in its brokenness and fragmentation, in its tensions and dichotomies, and which as such is incapable of the ultimate vision? Or is it this vision and this unique experience that must again become for us the “means” of our understanding of the world, the starting point and the very possibility of a truly divine victory over all that in this world is but human, historical, and cultural?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Edited with emphasis in bold and italics by Ellopos Blog] The very idea of women’s ordination as it is present and discussed today is the result of too many confusions and reductions… It is indeed almost entirely dominated by the old “clerical” view of the Church and the double “reduction” inherent in it: the reduction […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_disable_autopaging":false},"categories":[10],"tags":[1279,3417,597,610,3938,3940,3931,247,3934,2562,2489],"class_list":["post-1684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-orthodox-christianity","tag-clergy","tag-communion","tag-deification","tag-human-nature","tag-kingdom-of-god","tag-liberation","tag-ordination-of-women","tag-priesthood","tag-priestly-life","tag-sacrifice","tag-son-of-god"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1684\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}