The WCC Ecumenical Decade of Churches in Solidarity with Women, 1988-1998, provided an opportunity for Orthodox women to assess changes in the past decade and work for change in the future. In order to facilitate a further consultation an Orthodox women's resource group met in Cairo, Egypt, in early March 1989 to plan an agenda for the meeting, which will take place in Crete, January 16-24, 1990.

Following the invitation from Rev Anna Karen Hammar, Director of the WCC sub-unit on Women in Church and Society, I had great pleasure in attending the meeting in Cairo, as an Australian representative, together with women from Greece, Finland, U.S.A., India and Egypt. Women from the eastern bloc countries were unable to obtain visas to enter Egypt but will be present in Crete.

The resource group were intent in widening the agenda and realms of discussion beyond the traditional areas of women's concern. Representing a wide variety of church practices and society attitudes from the Malankara Syrian Orthodox Church in Kerala, India, a church founded by St Thomas, and steeped in traditional secular as well as religious attitudes to women, to the Orthodox Church in America, from the Russian tradition, realistic about its place in the New World but also affected by the rapid changes in secular society.

Any changes that have occurred to enhance the position of women in the Orthodox Church have been mainly confined to the arm of education (as teachers or studying for higher degrees) and social welfare delivery within the parish community. The role of women in the liturgical and administrative life of many churches is submissive and minimal, quite often due to cultural and patriarchal attitudes rather that canon law or dogma of the Orthodox Church.

It was determined by the resource group that the theme of the Crete Consultation would be Church and Culture (traditions and Tradition), with three sub-themes to develop. Participation (of women in Church and Culture); Ministry (of women and restoration in order of deaconesses); and Human Sexuality (to include uncleanness issues, liturgical rites and gender discrimination etc; the church owning and blessing all work women commit to the church etc).

Further issues such as Language and indigenisation, secularism, phyleticism, converts, mission and witness, and ecumenical relationships, were also stressed as matters of concern to be debated from the context of the involvement and effect on Orthodox women.

The Crete Consultation promises to be exciting and challenging and I look forward to attending and sharing in a pan-Orthodox Women's conference.