Dr Eva M Synek, Institut fur Kirchenrecht, in Vienna, Austria forwarded the following report for publication in MaryMartha. This report is of considerable interest for the journal, which has become a forum for presenting various attitudes and challenging questions in regard to the role of women in the Orthodox Church. Without such a journal, many Orthodox women would be unable to access this report and learn of ongoing discussions which arise in various forums concerning 'the women's question', which rarely include the scholarship or contributions of contemporary Orthodox women.

During one week representatives of academic and ecclesiastical centres from Kerala to Moscow and from the Vatican to the Phanar were hosted by the Hellenic College/Greek Orthodox School of Theology. The Conference organisers included Lewis Patsavos, Professor for Canon Law at Hellenic College/Greek Orthodox School of Theology and an Eastern-Catholic member of the Society, Rt Rev Chorbishop John D Faris/Eparchy of St Maron/New York. Several hierarchs were present including Most Rev Archbishop John Rinne of Karelia and all Finland and Most Rev Metropolitan Prof. Dr Panteleimon Rodopoulos. Speakers from the Old-Oriental Churches included Most Rev Metropolitan Mar Aprem of Kerala, India, from the Apostolic Church of the East, and Rev Dr Abel Oghlukian, Canada from the Armenian Apostolic Church. At least one lecture tried to include a Protestant perspective from Rev Dr Rodney Petersen, USA.

Amongst the topics of immediate interest to be addressed -the catholic theologumenon of the "character indelibilis", and differing Orthodox approaches to the perpetuity of the effects of Holy Orders, clerical celibacy, married episcopate and marriage after ordination - was also the question of the ordination of women. The latter was not only one of the issues dealt with in the panel discussion (Orthodox panelist; John H Erickson, Professor. at St Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary Crestwood, New York; Catholic panelist; Archimandrite Dr Victor Pospishil - New Jersey) but also privately discussed in coffee breaks and at dinner. One of the main lectures from Rev Dr Abel Oghukian was completely dedicated to the ordination of deaconesses in the Armenian Apostolic Church. Other speakers touched upon the question of deaconesses in their papers which were mainly concerned with other questions.

The following summary of the Conference will only focus on the women's question: the acts of the Congress including a general summary for those interested in the whole proceeding will be published in the scholarly yearbook of the Society for the Law of the Eastern Churches KANON. As stressed by Orthodox participants, the Orthodox Church was facing the current question of women's ordination from the "outside". Today one might wonder whether it has continued to be an issue due to ecumenical contacts with Churches ordaining women or theologians of Churches having serious discussion concerning women's ordination. The document from the Inter-Orthodox Theological Consultation on the Place of Women in the Orthodox Church (Rhodes 1988) suggested the re-establishment of the institution of female deacons which had historically existed in the Byzantine as well as the East and West Syrian Church Tradition. Therefore it is not completely correct when two participants in the Boston Congress replying to the panelists questioning the traditional argument against women's ordination maintained that women's ordination is completely strange to Orthodoxy - at least as far as deaconesses are concerned historically it was not. Further more, currently a vivid discussion is taking place in Orthodoxy as well as in Catholicism - as once more proved by the Boston conference itself - though the "official" position rests reserved.

In this context improved knowledge concerning the actual praxis of ordaining women in the Armenian Apostolic Church might be very helpful. After a general survey concerning the historical institution of deaconesses in the Christian East, Fr Oghlukian provided the participants of the conference with detailed information of its development in the Armenian Church within the last centuries. While the institution has died off in the Byzantine as well as the Syrian context it has gone through a time of revival in the Armenian Church. Today a female deacon of the Armenian Church is ordained in the same way as a male deacon and is serving in the same way as male deacons do (also in the Holy Liturgy). The only remaining restriction is that women cannot be elevated to Holy Priesthood. As far as the traditional demand of celibacy is concerned the question is currently discussed within the Armenian Church. The speaker referred to a personal meeting with the Katholikos: according to Oghlukian the Katholikos sees no obstacle, in principle, for the ordination of married women.

Fr Oghlukian and some other speakers reassured the historical existence of women deacons in several eastern ecclesiastical contexts. Several often quoted patristic sources like the so called Didascalia, a church-order from the third century deriving from a Greek speaking Syriac milieu as well as less known Byzantine (and, of course, Armenian) sources were mentioned. Metropolitan Mar Aprem pointed out that according to the tradition of the Apostolic Church of the East women deacons were appointed in order to help with the baptism of women though at present there were no deaconesses. He himself seemed to regret this: as beside the rare cases of conversions of adult women when a woman's help is needed for assisting a baptism- in such cases today a priest's wife replaces the deaconess - there would be enough to do for female pastoral workers in the sectors of education and welfare, eg. teaching or caring for parentless children. It seems that in the Apostolic Church of the East there would be no obstacles to revitalize the old tradition of ordaining women in principle but one would need qualified candidates willing to accept the vow of chastity. There was no discussion concerning the Coptic, Ethiopian or the Syrian Orthodox (West Syrian) Church.

John Erickson addressed several problems concerning the diaconate in the Orthodox context. He questioned the increasing phenomenon of the installation of male deacons who are not full-time employees of their Church and mainly serve as "adult altar boys" which might be a special problem of the North American churches as far as Orthodoxy is concerned but is well known also in European Catholicism. Addressing the discussion of re-establishing the female diaconate according to the old traditions as proposed by the above mentioned consultation in Rhodes, John Erikson raised the question whether this would be good policy: "What should the deaconess do?" At least in Western contexts the traditional catalogue of duties of a deaconess (baptismal assistance for women; women's catechesis; caring for sick women; reading from Holy Scripture and giving Holy Communion to women (within a monastic context) seems not to apply very much to current pastoral needs. In the context of gender-separating societies deaconesses were mainly restricted to a service to women.

As articulated by a Catholic theologian, Rev. Dr Edward Ondranko, the Armenian development assimilating the duties of female and male deacons seems more promising. Nevertheless one should not drop the ancient model as completely anachronistic :Mar Aprem and Oghlukian referred to situations where women would be required just to fulfil the traditional duties of a deaconess even today. The current situation in the former Soviet Union is quite similar to the missionary context of the Ancient Church when the institute of female deacons was first developed in connection with women's baptism at least in some aspects; administering Holy Baptism to adult persons necessitates the need of women's baptismal assistance again.
The contextual development of ecclesiastical offices particularly shown by Erikson is to be taken for granted for evidence in history. Especially in the Early Church there was a great variability of offices starting from biblical times. Creating new offices as well as reforming existing offices the Church always proved it had great flexibility when answering to current pastoral needs. The question of what duties should perhaps be assigned to female deacons is only one particular aspect within this greater topic of high pastoral significance challenging the canonical law also in our days.

From a legal point of view, one has to distinguish between three different situations concerning the admission of women to Holy Orders in principle:
1. the above treated current praxis of the Armenian Apostolic Church; deaconesses are actually ordained.
2. the situation of the Apostolic Church of East where no canonical obstacles seem to exist as far as the deaconesses are concerned. Though some Orthodox participants appeared to be irritated by the whole ordination question as treated in the panel discussion, also the canonical heritage of the Orthodox Churches is familiar with deaconesses. Whether there might be a similar situation in other Eastern Churches was not discussed at the conference.
3. the legal obstacles for ordaining deaconesses in the Eastern Catholic Churches; the new Code for the Oriental Churches reserves all major orders (including diaconate) definitely to male persons. As mentioned in the lecture of Nedungatt there were attempts to "canonize" the old institutions of the deaconess in the new Code at least among the "alia ministeria" but the relevant draft worked out by the Study Group "De Clericis" (of which Nedungatt was himself a member) failed to obtain the authorisation for publication. Nevertheless it would be possible to create deaconesses according to a particular law: As stressed by Nedungatt, the "patriarchal churches can freely institute or restitute the ministry of deaconesses within their territories" but such "deaconesses" would not share in the holy Orders of deacons.

The problem of women's ordination certainly cannot be reduced to the legal aspect. At the Boston Conference theological considerations found their place especially within the panel discussion. They seem extremely urgent when transgressing the question of re-establishing the institute of female deacons. Erickson who had delivered a remarkable paper at Rhodes tried to show once more that the usual arguments against the ordination of women to deacons and priesthood are not very convincing. Of course, there is a long tradition not to ordain women. But as the Very Rev. Bishop Kallistos Ware remarks- today a lot of people are not satisfied anymore by knowing that women's ordination is not tradition. "They wish to know why it is not". As the problem was not discussed in Orthodoxy for a long time an autochthon Orthodox tradition of theological considerations is more or less missing.

Certainly some patristic discourse concerning women's ordination was handed down, so especially within Epiphanius' Panarion. Epiphanius deals with the phenomenon of female ministers in circles deriving from the early-Christian enthusiastic movement of "New Prophecy" (which in its established version most times is called Montanism). Opposing this praxis he appeals specifically to the praxis of Christ, the apostles and the Church throughout the ages. "God never appointed to this ministry (ie priesthood) a single woman on earth", not even Mary, though she was elected to be the Mother of the Lord. As today this argument for tradition seems not to be sufficient in every case Orthodox theologians sometimes borrow their arguments from the official Catholic doctrine as set forth in Inter Insigniores (and also in more recent Roman documents).

Erickson concentrated on two main arguments:

1. the argument that women could not be priests because in the exercise of his official functions- and above all as celebrant of Holy Eucharist- the priest directly represents Christ. To put it in other words: the priest acting "in persona Christi" is an "icon" of Christ, so that "natural resemblance" to Christ- including male sex would be a prerequisite for ordination. A female priest would damage the symbolic significance of priesthood. But, as stressed by Erickson, one will not find the idea of the priest's "natural resemblance" to Christ in the patristic teaching about priesthood. He also criticised the implied tendency to reduce priesthood to the function of celebrating Holy Eucharist. Moreover the argument presupposes a particular Western understanding of the Eucharist which locates "the moment of consecration" at the point when the priest repeats the dominical words of institution.

2. the order of creation. Erickson conceded that arguing with the order of creation is more in harmony with the patristic teaching than the symbolic argument. Many Fathers insisted on the headship of the male. Gender hierarchy was not only very common in paganism as well as in the judaic heritage of the Church but is also presupposed in New Testament texts. Consequently many Fathers considered it to be an integral part of the natural order due to God's will. But only referring to patristic evidence seems not sufficient. Erickson also asked scholars to pay attention to the context of the anthropological model of gender hierarchy. Connected theological views as, for example, to be found in the Ambrosiaster, were very close to Roman Law which was considered to conform with Natural Law. They were born within a world where one hesitated to accept social authority of women.

Today theology is confronted with a new sociological context at least in the western world :The old conception of the headship of the male is more and more dying off. Not only biological doctrines about womenhood have changed, also the social and secular legal status of women has become completely different in many countries. While in some milieus the living conditions of women seem to be worse than ever, as added by Rev. Pospishil, in other contexts an increasing number of women are educated (including theological formation). they can reach top positions in economic and political life but remain excluded from leadership positions within our Churches.

In his final contribution Fr Pospishil demonstrated that the current question of women's ordination is to be seen as an integral part of the whole women's question culminating in the claim of equal dignity for both sexes. The women's question is, not least, a question of credibility for the Churches. Will the Churches take women seriously in their struggle for human dignity? On one hand the Church is challenged by the question of an adequate distribution of power: is the Church able to realize her teaching of equal dignity of both sexes in a credible way in her own order, consequently also granting equal rights? On the other hand female pastoral competence and learning is evident. The church is responsible for making the best of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. If the ordination of women to priesthood is supposed to be impossible (at least at the moment), one will have to find convincing alternatives.

One step would be the admission of women to the diaconate which seems to be less controversial because of the historical evidence. But at least in the Catholic context traditional theological teaching had had the tendency to overestimate priesthood. As pictured by Pospishil, when teaching children their catechesis, it was quite usual to speak about priesthood as if it were the best way one could choose in order to serve God. In telling the true story of the child Cathy, now a grown woman, Pospishil demonstrated the frustrating experience of a girl who is willing to serve God by choosing the "best" way; she then has to accept that she has no chance because she has the wrong sex! When Erickson said that Western clericalism brought upon the current questions of women's ordination he might have had such situations in mind.

Today some matters have at least partly changed. Official documents of the Catholic Church try to remind the faithful that ordination does not count for the order of sanctity. At a reception for the participants of the conference His Eminence Bernard Cardinal Law, Archbishop of Boston, referring to his own diocese, stressed that an increasing number of laypersons with their charismata and theological knowledge has proven to be a great gift for church life within the last years. One should not only count the vocations for priesthood but also estimate other vocations. Some speakers referred to women who are already working very effectively in the Church. As pointed out by Pospishil, more estimation for laypersons charismata including teaching competence and more access to decision finding processes as well as leadership positions might be an important step to resolving the women's question in the Orthodox Church.