Traditional Orthodox Christianity comes down firmly in favor of patriarchy on two key defining issues: upholding the Pauline headship of the husband, and having all-male Orthodox clergy.
There are also aspects of Orthodox Christianity that both glorify and exalt holy women to such a degree that distinguishes it from most other varieties of patriarchy.
For example:
- The highly exalted place of the Theotokos in the life of the Church and her theological significance
- The lives of female Saints and their veneration
- A developed, robust, apostolic theology of singleness which doesn’t erroneously (or mercilessly) elevate marriage above virginity
With that being said, on the questions most central to the topic, Orthodoxy certainly exemplifies traditional patriarchy.
Some of the key New Testament texts most commonly cited in the discussion are Gal. 3:28, Eph. 5:22–33, 1 Cor. 11:3–15; 14:34–35, 1 Pet. 3:1–7, and 1 Tim. 2:9–15; 3:2,12. Even without the witness of two millennia of undivided Christian tradition on the subject, the latter six texts are unquestionable in their rejection of a feminist or egalitarian viewpoint, and the text from Galatians isn’t enough to overturn such conclusions.
The key issue with reading Gal. 3:28 as a vindication of egalitarianism is Christological.
If, indeed, there exist no slaves, Jews, or males in Christ, then it would be rather difficult to account for the fact that there is now, as I type, a (crucified, risen, and glorified) Jewish male-slave reigning at the right hand of His Father in eternity. Christ is the first fruits of the resurrection from the dead (1 Cor. 15:20), and in His resurrection He did not shed His Jewishness or maleness or what they signify—such as his relationship to the Father as His image and Son (not merely ‘child’), His being the fulfillment of the old covenant in the flesh, His being the New Adam who relinquishes the curse of Eden, or the masculine character of His relation to the feminine Church (the Bride of Christ).
Christ’s incarnation, life, death, and resurrection transfigures our entire being, including our mortal flesh in all its particularity, elevating it to the Father’s right hand. To read Gal. 3:28 as if it’s referring to the erasure of human distinctions or particularity—rather than to Christ healing and transfiguring those from within—is incompatible with core Christological doctrines such as the Resurrection and Christ’s consubstantiality with humanity.
The apostle Paul rather points to the way that our identity in Christ is the most essential feature of our being. Other features which were once barriers to human unity are no longer such in our union with Christ. St. John Chrysostom writes of this passage:
“You are all One in Christ Jesus,” that is, you have all one form and one mould, even Christ’s. What can be more awful [read: awesome] than these words! He that was a Greek, or Jew, or bond-man yesterday, carries about with him the form, not of an Angel or Archangel, but of the Lord of all, yea displays in his own person the Christ.
This is a oneness with Christ that doesn’t do away with differentiation, but rather is manifested in it. Christ’s being is truly joined to ours in His taking the flesh of Mary. As Christ’s divinity does not diminish his humanity—in all of its real dimensions, gender and ethnicity included—neither does our unity in Christ, nor our union with Him, diminish or negate our own. For Gal. 3:28 to be a fitting, egalitarian text, it must de-incarnate Christ, which is the height of both heresy and blasphemy for all faithful Christians.
While this cornerstone ’feminist’ text—upon which the entirety of a feminist, Scriptural hermeneutic either stands or falls—is accounted for within a traditional Christian perspective, there is simply no real way to fit the remaining aforementioned texts with either feminism or strict egalitarianism, while also holding to the authority of Scripture in the life of the Church.
In the next post, I will examine some of the other key texts of this debate from an Orthodox perspective, showing that the authority of God over man is imaged in Christian marriage.
This is the first in a three-part series responding to feminism. — Part two and part three are now available.