This book is a collection of addresses and articles which together form an extended reflection on the theme of women in the church. Such books are not uncommon these days but this one is distinctive in that it reflects an Orthodox perspective. The author, born in 1907 at Strasbourg-Schiltigheim, is a Russian Orthodox lay theologian who has taught in Paris at both the Saint-Serge Institute of Orthodox Theology and the Catholic Institute. Her own theological studies began at the University of Strasbourg, where in 1927 she was one of the first women students in the faculty of theology. She has had large and rich ecumenical experience, of which this book is in many ways the fruit.

The particular starting point to the pieces collected here was, she states, the consultation of Orthodox women held in Agapia (Romania) in 1976, under the joint auspices of the World Council of Churches and the Orthodox churches. In her opening address at this conference, Mme Behr-Sigel called on Orthodox women to break the silence of centuries and to join with Orthodox men in a common reflection on the demands and tasks of the present. This book is, I believe, a significant contribution to that reflection and to ecumenical dialogue. It is formed and stimulated also by her participation over several years in the World Council of Churches study on the "Community of Women and Men in the Church", which brought her and other Orthodox Christians into dialogue with other Christians with very different views on the role of women in the church.

In what is basically a thematic presentation the first two chapters deal with theological anthropology - the doctrine of "man", male and female -in Scripture and the fathers; while chapter 3, the text of her address given at the 1981 Sheffield consultation on the "Community of Women and Men in the Church". offers a vision of new community drawn from the rich resources of the Orthodox tradition and depicted in its icons. The fourth and fifth chapters deal with women in the Orthodox church, looking at both the vision and the existential reality. Here there is inevitably some repetition of themes already dealt with in earlier chapters. For this reader, an Anglican, these chapters were the most interesting and helpful towards gaining an appreciation of the Orthodox tradition, a deeper understanding of some of the points on which we disagree, and some ideas to where and how we might move towards mutual understanding and closer agreements.

The sixth chapter, an address on Mary given at a 1985 conference organized by the Lutheran World Federation, sketches the historical development and spiritual significance of Marian devotion in the Orthodox church, putting it in contemporary context. The final chapter is an appendix containing the text published in 1979 by a group of Orthodox in Paris to stimulate discussion on "women and men in the people of God", Their questions are posed in "a spirit of humility and openness" and the same spirit permeates the whole of this book.

Behr-Sigel affirms the Orthodox tradition and believes that it gives women their proper place, distinctive from but in no way inferior to that of men. At the same time she acknowledges that there are "traditions". in the form of historical distortions and cultural accretions, which are demeaning to women and which must be abolished. She addresses the difficult ecumenical question of the ordination of women openly and traces the evolution of her own thinking on this issue, acknowledging that her conclusions may be shocking to some. She suggests that although the Orthodox tradition does not at present allow the ordination of women to the diaconate or presbyterate, the continuity of tradition should not be understood as necessarily fixing the church in the past so that it is unable to keep growing, in the Holy Spirit, "in newness of life". She supports the growing movement towards a restoration of the historic diaconate for women and indicates several areas for further theological exploration, particularly the question of the representative nature of the priesthood. The ordination of women seems at times to pose insurmountable problems within the ecumenical movement and even within individual churches, Behr-Sigel pleads for a pluralism of discipline - which she sees as not necessarily incompatible with unity of faith and ecclesial communion. I would that this view could prevail, not least in the Anglican communion!

In all these varied chapters the author's attitude and approach is basically the same: she recognizes the historical, socio-cultural, theological and spiritual differences between Orthodoxy and Western Christianity, and is unafraid to listen to the often critical questions posed to the former by the latter, particularly by the contemporary feminist movement. She affirms the Orthodox tradition which she understands and experiences as, above all, dynamic and life-giving, while at the same time she acknowledges that the praxis of the historic institutional church at times lacks the fullness of this tradition.

Behr-Sigel is able to recognize and reject misogyny in the fathers because she is convinced that basically their theology insists on the equality of male and female. Steeped in Russian Orthodox spirituality and deeply influenced by Russian Orthodox theologians of the twentieth century - particularly Paul Evdokimov and Serge Boulgakov - she is not afraid to join with them in speculative theology, as for example, on the feminine nature of the Holy Spirit. The whole book is pervaded by an eirenic spirit and undergirded by her ever present faith in "le mystere trinitaire".

I would recommend this book highly to all who wish to enlarge their understanding of the Orthodox tradition and hope that it may be translated into English so that it will be available for a wider readership.