Emmanuelle Christophe (a pen name) has been the wife of a priest for nearly twenty years. She candidly shares with us here some of her personal thoughts and experiences in this role

Gathered once again for the celebration of the Divine Liturgy, the beauty and depth of its message touch my heart... "Now lay aside all earthly care... receive the King of Glory who comes invisibly upborne by the angelic hosts.. Alleluia".

The vivid reminder of who I truly am invites me to lay aside as well all falsehood and embrace the reality of my being as reflector of the Creator's work, indeed a person capable of receiving Christ and seeing with my eyes of faith the multitude of holy beings that accompany Him.

By the last "Blessed be the name of the Lord", I have finally managed to detach myself enough from my earthly cares to pray without distraction so that the prayers of thanksgiving, precious legacy of our church Fathers, become my prayers: "I thank thee 0 Lord that Thou hast satisfied me with Thy blessing..."

Today offers the opportunity for a new experience. My travels have taken me to a distant parish where I can experience anew the vitality of the liturgy grounded in its centuries old tradition. The common thread of our liturgical worship provides a welcome home in a strange place reminding me that God is the same yesterday, today, tomorrow... something I cannot boast for myself.

I am changing. The way people see me and relate to me is changing. Among these strangers, I feel a sense of reprieve. Now I will have a chance to present myself as I am, to be welcomed as another person, a counterpart... simply human.

As we venerate the icon upon leaving the church, we all together and separately bless ourselves with the sign of the holy, life-giving cross, saying silently perhaps even unconsciously, "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit". Even this silent gesture proclaims unity in the Holy Trinity. As one body, we move from the heavenly eucharistic table to the earthly table of coffee hour where lively chatter, laughter, children's voices resound.

Here where no one knows me, I can manage for a moment to presume to be like other people. I say how good it was to pray here today. I extend a hand of greeting to several women who welcome me, to a young couple with two small children, to an elderly gentleman in a wheelchair, to the priest. Even as we speak and begin to share, I am aware that this cloak of anonymity is temporary. When they realise that I am a priest's wife, it will all slip away. Many will automatically feel they know me, attribute to me all kinds of unfulfilled mother wishes, and stop the process of getting to know me. I will also be presented with some challenges in getting to know them. They will want to present their best side or, in some cases, will identify me as a willing listener and spill out everything they have been holding in for the past twenty years; hurts, resentments, griefs and gripes.

And so in this fleeting interlude when I am still just a person, I soak up every moment of normalcy. We talk about the building project, their hopes to have a new church in the next few years. Jennifer and Mark will be married next Sunday. They tell me what they are doing, where they'll live. The two children I met a few minutes ago. prompted by their parents bring a bouquet of spring flowers to me as the new visitor. The people begin to ask questions. Do I have children? Where do I live? What is my work? And then the question that turns everything inside out: "What does your husband do?" Or sometimes it comes in the form of: "What did you say your last name was?"; "Are you related to so and so who wrote those wonderful books?"

And so, sooner or later they know I'm a priest's wife. I am grateful more than I can say to be married to my husband. I am grateful more than I can say that God called him to the priesthood. I am grateful more than I can say that God has granted us the gift of life together.

So it's out. Now they know. A few people gasp. A few people apologise profusely and immediately address me by my title "Matushka". Like an accordian playing a stately requiem, I sense some people backing away to leave me the space and dignity of my role. Others move in closer and begin another form of dialogue and questioning. Some talk about their priest's wife with pride, others gossip and reveal their disappointment with her, knowing I will understand because they have already attributed to me the quality of understanding. Their false image is quickly dashed when I say I am uncomfortable hearing about their disappointment in the priest's wife and that they need to speak directly with her. I add that no one person can be all things to all people. Over the years I have come to believe that providing information is sometimes what is needed.

I think to myself how hard it is to be the one placed on a pedestal by others, how isolating... the higher the pedestal, the longer the fall. And "by the way" my inner voice continues in a testy tone, "I am not your little mother". I've already had more than enough little mother experience with my younger brothers and sisters, a burden too heavy for my young years. As a mother of my own children, I learned something about real motherhood and discovered its beauty, its delight, its uncertainty, its challenges. I learned about love, wonder, thanksgiving.

If I could say right now what I am feeling and thinking as you discover my role as a priest's wife, I would leave you bereft of your image of me, amazed, shocked, confused. But listen anyway. This could be important for you and for me.

This is a lonely place. Some of you visibly moved back in your chairs when you realised I was married to a priest. Why do YOU apologize for treating me as a human being like any other person? What merit is there to assuming I am all sweetness and light, the giver of all good things. Please do not confuse me with God. This is idolatry. I get tired, become sad, and angry. I play. I love. I cry. I delight in God's creation. I have a name and I wish to be known by my name, the same name by which God knows me.

Being someone's mother is a serious thing. Just calling someone "Matushka" cannot replace the holy pilgrimage required of those for whom God reserves the gift of spiritual kinship. We need to pray our way with reverence and awe into this holy space free from all attitudes of entitlement and automatic behaviour.

Yes, who I am is also the wife of a priest and this does not mean that I come from a precast mold much as a TV dinner ready to be consumed. Priest's wives are not assembly line products who come complete with a guarantee and instructions for use. Scripture tells us many things about vocation, gifts and discernment of God's will.

"Only let everyone lead the life which the Lord has assigned to him.. and in which God has called him" (I Cor. 7:17) "Now there are a variety of gifts but the same Spirit, and there are varieties of service but the same Lord and there are varieties of working but it is the same God who inspires them all in every one..." (I Cor.4:46). "Putting away falsehood, let everyone speak the truth with their neighbour for we are members one of another... " (Eph 4: 25).

Our life in Christ is a life from Him and through Him, "assigned" by Him, not, as some would believe, one that is assigned by parishioners, bishops, priests, our husbands. God deals with the wife of a priest directly as an individual, part of the body of Christ, a person with her own special gifts and talents to bring to the functioning of the Christian community. Coersion and shaming are not the methods that God uses to bring forth a vocation in the wife of a priest.

And did you know, I love to ice skate, swim, paint, ride my bike, take long walks in the woods. write, pray, keep silence? My favourite colour is blue. I have just lost my father. My son and his wife were recently divorced. My husband, yes, the priest, is very stressed and overworked just now. I am concerned about him. I love flowers and gardening. My friends are wonderful gifts to me. I will be moving soon, an event that provokes gratitude, anxiety, grief. Will I find work (and I do need to work because otherwise we will not have an adequate income). I love my work. For me, it is a vocation. I help people come to know and embrace their true selves, the divine image in which they were created, to acknowledge and let go of the Old Adam, to engage in the pilgrimage of "theosis", transformation through sanctification. It is an amazingly adventurous, spirit-filled, journey along a path that I feel very privileged to travel with others. This same path of continued sanctification is one I embark on each day, stumbling, starting over and over, by God's grace and with the help of many caring people.

Have you ever been treated with such specialness that it annihilates your humanity?

My thoughts over Sunday morning coffee and bagel are interrupted by an enthusiastic man who says he loves my husband's last book and what is he writing now and do I know what my husband thinks about the ecumenical movement? I have a particular dislike for these three way conversations where the key figure is absent and the person who is present is ignored. Once when giving a lecture, the person introducing me began by saying I was the wife of Fr. so and so then proceeded to give his biography. I was very tempted to call him forward to give the address. He. however, is never introduced as my husband when he lectures. This is not about competition but rather simple respect and courtesy.

Gratitude marks our marital vocation. However, I do not wish to be treated as an appendage to my husband or even worse, a kind of trinket. What is happening to our ecclesial sanity when we elevate women married to priests to the rank of "Matushki", expect of them full time, unpaid, unpensioned positions and then at the deaths of their priest husbands relegate them to the role of "widowed matushki", asking them to vacate their "homes" (which as it happens are owned most often by the church) and in many cases to accept their husband's pension benefits that will be reduced by half after ten years? Who understands this outrage?

Many of my fellow priest's wives who no longer feel as though they are betraying God, the Church, the bishop or their husbands when they tell the truth, understand it. Thank God my husband understands it. My children understand it. And perhaps someday,a bishop or two will lend a compassionate ear and perhaps even support priest's wives who wish only to be true and to do God's Will.

We, as priest's wives, do have vocations and these vocations are not all the same. No matter who understands or who refuses to understand, we can all return to the bedrock of our church life, this inter-generational gift of holiness that urges us to lay aside all earthly cares to receive the king of glory who comes invisibly upborne by the heavenly hosts. By God's grace and in His love, pray that we may be true.