In our world we are trying today to look for examples and idols and we hurry for new experiences and new discoveries.We believe that within the church, men and women have their own role and contribution to the church and acknowledge the role of both laity and clergy in the Church. It is actually the central point of ecumenical dialogue. Some Churches have tried to give an answer on their own to this question and do for example ordain women to the priesthood and even to the ministry of bishops. What is the main position of the Orthodox Church on this point or in other words, what does the Orthodox church do to deal with this problem, or is it really a problem for the Orthodox Church? We would like to treat here this subject in the following three steps, knowing however that this is only a small contribution or overview of several other studies on the subject

a. the meaning of the Christian community
b. some aspects of the Orthodox Women's movement
c. the question of ordination of women in the Orthodox Church

The devoted people reunited in the Church, represent not only a "reunion" in a social way, but more a eucharistic or liturgical reunion. The whole worship is "liturgy"; the Orthodox Church does not know any personal or autonomous acts or prayers. It is a whole body, the Body of Christ, whose parts are the Christians, with Christ Himself as the Head. (2). This Christian community is a community of love, "let us love one another , so we can confess in unity" we sing in the liturgy just before the creed. It is also a Eucharistic community, a community of thanksgiving. Following the example of Christ at the Last Supper, we come together and take part in one communion. In the Orthodox church we celebrate all the Saints on the Sunday after Pentecost, so that every Saint, even if he or she is not especially celebrated in the liturgical year has a day on which they can be commemorated.

In the thinking that both men and women compose the Body of Christ, but have their own different "gifts", all in the same spirit we may see this human community. Maria represents the female, the servant, the Mother of God. In the person of Maria we have the highest honour ever given to a woman or a man. Maria is the one who receives the Word of God in her own body. Very often we are tempted to answer to a spiritual theme with material words. This is the same for the equality between men and women in the church. Of course, there is a practical aspect of the theme: division of tasks between men and women and a division of justice. But there is also a spiritual aspect.

For the Orthodox Church the ministry of priesthood is not only a "ministry", a profession, as a teacher or a professor, but a service, like the service of Jesus Christ Himself. From Him we receive all the services in the Church and in this typological conception we have received until now every continuation of the divine ministry in the person of the male.The same for the female service in the Church, we have known spiritual motherhood, and on the example of the Mother of God, we have the service of women in the church, like for example the deaconesses in the earlier Church and in Byzantium.

This distinction of services has not been considered as a degradation or a humiliation of women. Both are of the same value. Today women try to gain their rights and have the same chances as men. In a secular civilization this struggle has gone over into the Church, so that some churches, like the Protestant or the Anglican Church react to this with a concrete decision which, nevertheless does sometimes divide the Body of Christ.

As Maximos the Confessor states: "Men, women, children; profoundly different as to race, nation, language, occupation, knowledge, class, fortune... the Church regenerates them all by the spirit. They all receive from it a unique and indestructable nature... we are all thus united in a truly catholic way". This is the celestial vision conveyed by the sacramental of the Orthodox Church that of a community of persons- men and women- equal in dignity.

This point will be a brief review of what the Orthodox Church is doing, also in between the general ecumenical movement, to respond on the question of the place of women in the Orthodox church. In the last twenty years we can see throughout meetings and conferences held in different countries that there is an effort made by the Orthodox church to respond to a challenge.
As early as 1976, the first Women's consultation in Romania was held at the women's monastery of Agapia, after an invitation of the World Council of Churches. The participants attempted to share their experiences and to articulate the problems they face in their commitment to the church and in life and in society today.

The discussion points were on the participation of women in education and their vocation in the church, family and in church life, their witness in society, and their participation in the ecumenical movement. The theme of the ordination of women should be discussed in the light of the Orthodox tradition and the special ministry of deaconesses should be revived and renewed. The same points were discussed in between different other meetings and brought finally to the first Inter-Orthodox Consultation of Rhodes in Fall 1988 with the theme "The Place of Women in the Orthodox church and the Question of the Ordination of Women". The participants were theologians, men and women, clergy, monks and nuns.

The fact that an increasing number of women are graduates of theology creates a new reality.The Church is called to give to these women the opportunity of appointments to adequate positions in the life of the Church. The position of nuns in the church were underlined, as was the position of the priest's wife. Developing the place of women in the Church should help to understand the place of lay people in general in the church. This should be an object for studies at theological universities, seminaries and parishes. The apostolic order of deaconesses should be revived. Furthermore, it should be allowed to women to enter in the "lower orders" (sub-deacon, reader, cantor, teacher) and why not, to new orders.

The point was stressed that it is very important to take a position on the role of women in the Orthodox church, considering the Ecumenical Decade Churches in Solidarity with Women 1988-98 in the wider ecumenical level. In January 1990, the Second Inter-Orthodox women's consultation was held in Crete. The main purpose of this consultation was to offer to the Orthodox women a meeting place, where they could exchange their experiences and their thoughts on different subjects; the church orders, the distribution of sexes, participation and decision and the understanding of the interaction of faith, of Church and culture. The lectures referred to the situation that the ordination of women is a new question in the Orthodox church. It must therefore be well considered in all discussions on ecclesiastical and cultural levels.The historical context must be reviewed under the light of the biblical Revelation and of the Christological Dogma of Nicea and Constantinople.

Why is there no women's ordination in Orthodoxy? This is the main question presented to Orthodox theologians and especially if they are women. But to answer to this, one must be ready to listen and to understand. The question of women's ordination to priesthood is a new one in Christianity. Until the present only the Anglican and the major part of the Protestant churches have proceeded to the ordination of women. The Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Church do not change the Tradition that exists in the church to ordain only men for priesthood. For Orthodoxy the Holy Scripture and Tradition are essential and relevant.We do not relate only to the fact that Jesus chose men as his Apostles, but also that for more that nineteen centuries the Body of Christ, the Church, has never failed in her choice to select only men for the order of priests or bishop.

We refer to the manner in which to interpret the revelation of the Scripture as a whole text to apply and to live by. The basic arguments againt womens ordination are the following:

- Jesus is not only in history. He is also above history, as a total human being and true, perfect God. He is independent of the norms and the customs of His time. So we see Him speaking to the Samaritan woman, although she was a woman and a Samaritan. So we may presume that Jesus would have chosen women to be his apostles as well, if this had been His will.

- we believe that the Church maintains the Spirit of Truth and Wisdom. Who will guide her in the everlasting Truth. Should we believe that the Church failed in these last nineteen centuries?

- the common answer of all Orthodox is that one cannot isolate the question of women's ordination from the totality of the Church, the faith in the Triune God, to the Creation, the Fall and the Remption, to the Church and the Mystery of the theandric-God-Man life. And the question of Tradition? What is Tradition? Is the living memory and consciousness of the Church, the only criterion? Or is it the product and so it needs to be renewed, redefined or rejected?

- Orthodox theologians are unanimous that the problem of womens' ordination has to be seen in the context of the doctrine of the Scriptures of the holy men and women of the Church and not only among the perspective of human rights and the feminist movement.

- ordination is a sacrament of the Orthodox Churches. As such it has a symbolic or iconic charcter, which is anchored in the typos of Jesus Christ, the arch-priest (4) The ministerial priesthood has a male character, while we recognize that the royal priesthood is for all baptized Christians, men and women. And of course there is no reason why women cannot exercise other kinds of ministies such as missionary and charitable work, teaching and counselling, caring for the sick, the poor and the elderly.(5)

- the problem of the ordination of women is in connection with our understanding of the Church, the Ecclesiology and the Oikonomia of the plan of God for the human person. Alexander Schmemann wrote : "women's ordination has become the culmination and the radical and the unchecked mutilation of the entire faith, the rejection of the totality of the Scriptures nad the end of every dialogue". Hopefully we correct: not the end or even the impass but the way through a very long tunnel.

- we are conscious that the Holy Spirit is always active (Jn 16, 13-15), that Jesus Christ is always the same yesterday, today and for ever. That what the Holy Spirit is transmitting to us is always the same Revelation, namely the unchanged truth of Jesus Christ Himself and the plan of salvation for creation. Without the work and contribution of women in the Church, our churches would have been much poorer, even might not exist. We can see this in the example of Maria, the Mother of God and her contribution in the Church of Christ. We can see it in the example of the crowd of holy women, saints, mothers of the desert who give us also today their witness of the life of Jesus Christ. There is a place in the Church for women. Let us be in solidarity with women on this purpose (6) and let us hear what the Holy Spirit is saying to the Churches today.

REFERENCES

1 Ecumenical Patriarchate, The Place of the Woman in the Orthodox Church and the Question of the Ordination of Women Inter-Orthodox Symposium, Rhodes, 1988. Ed. by Gen. Limouris, Katerini Tertios April 1992 ( with a rich bibliography); SYNAXI, journal on Orthodox subjects (in Greek), no.36, Oct-Dec 1990. The Woman in the Church and in the World", Katerina Karkala-Zorba, Die Stellung der Frau in der Orthodoxen Kirche, Okumenisches Forum 17, Graz 1994, pp.195-212.
2 Ephesians 1:22-23; 1 Cor. 12:5; 12:12-13.
3 1 Corinthians, 12:5.
4 Elisabeth Behr-Sigel, The Ordination of Women: an ecumenical problem, SOBORNOST, 13:1, 1991.
5 Verna F Harrison, Orthodox Arguments Against Women as Priests, SOBORNOST, 14:1, 1992.
6 Ecumenical Decade of Churches in Solidarity with Women (1988-98)