Women have always been essential to the Orthodox Christian Church. Jesus Christ came to Earth as a baby born of the Virgin Mary. She is called the Mother of God, for her body grew and nourished the God-man. Mary is called “more spacious than the Heavens” for in her womb she held eternity. Mary humbly submitting to God’s will for the birth of His Son was the single greatest human contribution in all history to the salvation of humankind. Mary’s role in the life of Jesus did not stop at His birth. She raised her son the way any mother would, and it was at her intercession that Jesus began his public ministry by changing water into wine at the Wedding Feast in Cana.
In addition to Mary, women are everywhere in the New Testament. Just a few examples: Saints Mary and Martha who were particularly devoted to Christ, St. Photine who spoke to Christ in Samaria at the well, St. Veronica who was healed from an issue of blood and who wiped Christ’s face as He carried His cross towards Golgotha, the Canaan woman crying out to Jesus to heal her daughter as an example of perfect faith, and St. Mary Magdalene who traveled with Christ and is mentioned by name more often (12 times) than most Apostles. At the crucifixion, women stood at the foot of the cross, never abandoning Our Lord even as many of the Apostles ran and hid: Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala. (John19:25) The first to see the empty tomb of Christ were the Myrrh-bearing women, among them Mary Magdalene who is called the “Apostle to the Apostles” because she was the one who announced the resurrection of Christ to the Eleven.
Women were important to the Christian Faith, but the Christian Faith was also important to women. Greco-Roman “morality” was a hellscape for women and children: women were considered less than men (not the least because of their likelihood to develop strong emotional attachments to children), sex was based on dominance (including violence and even rape), pederasty / pedophilia was normal for men, unwanted infants were openly murdered via abandonment and abortion, children were considered to be less-than-human, rampant promiscuity (on the male side) was normal, and sexual abuse of slaves was perfectly acceptable.
Christianity offered a way out of such a sick and degraded world. In Christianity, each and every person (regardless of status, sex, race, tribe, nationality or age) is made in the unique image and likeness of God. Everyone matters. Everyone is of infinite value, even the weakest among us. As a result of this radical teaching, Christian couples loved and cherished each other. The dominance and brutality of the surrounding world was replaced by mutual respect. Christian couples lovingly raised all of their children, male and female, as abortion and abandonment of infants (frequently females) was forbidden by the Church. Divorce and promiscuity were sins against God. Their decline gave more security to women and children within the family. For these reasons and more, the early Church was numerically dominated by women. Bishop Cyprian of Carthage, writing in the 3rd Century, acknowledged that Christian maidens were so numerous it was hard to find husbands for them all.
The Christian Faith so totally transformed classical society, that today we take completely for granted such things as the full personhood of women, the value of all human life, charity, legal protection of children, and marital fidelity. To us, all of these are normal. But they aren’t normal in a fallen world. Everything good in our society flows directly from the cultural influence of the Christian Faith. To borrow a well-worn phrase often used by the media, as Christian cultural influence declines – women and children are the hardest hit.
In many ways, Orthodoxy in the West is responsible for this decline. Our teaching has too often echoed that of the world or been too timid in its opposition. The lack of moral clarity has not only exposed women and girls to external harm, it has also led many to embrace their own degradation. All of us know women who believe that gyrating naked on a stage in front of strangers is liberating, while having a warm, loving marriage is a form of slavery.
The situation is quite serious. Not only are the precious souls of women and girls at risk, so is everything else.
What can we, as a Church, do to protect women and girls and steer them on the correct path? We need to reject the world as it is, and teach the truths we have known for over two-thousand years.
Motherhood is Essential
What do young girls hear as advice about their futures? Stay in school, get on Tinder, get on the Pill, have recreational sex, experiment with your sexuality, travel, go to parties, get a college degree, get an abortion if you need one (or two or three). Do whatever makes you happy – just don’t become a mother! Don’t get married, don’t get pregnant. If you get married too young, you will miss out. If you have a baby, then your life is over. Wait until you have your education out of the way, waste the most fertile years of your life trying to climb the corporate ladder, then maybe have one perfect baby in your late 30’s / early 40’s. Don’t worry about your biological clock, IVF is there in case you have any trouble when the time is right. Trust the science!
Guess what? That advice is destroying young women and taking our society with it.
Many nations are going extinct. In half of all countries in the world, the fertility rate is so low that population decline is inevitable. This year alone, 500,000 fewer births are expected in the United State as the effects of the lockdowns and associated economic distress further exacerbate an already bad fertility situation.
On a personal level, many young women are an absolute mess. Studies consistently show that as many as one in five women have a mental health problem with young women particularly at risk. It is estimated that one in five women aged 16-25 are self-harming, and suicide rates in women are spiking to their highest rates in decades.
In addition, we are now seeing a massive rise in rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) among young women and teens, particularly those from upscale backgrounds. Social contagion plays a role, but one aspect often ignored is that many young women don’t want to be men, they just don’t want to be women. Author Abigail Shrier explained the phenomenon this way:
As Shrier empathizes, it’s natural for many adolescent girls to be leery of changing into women: “Puberty is hell,” Shrier explains—the bleeding, the cramps, the manic-depressive emotional swings, the need for attention and terror of unwanted attention, and the agonizing self-consciousness.
Few ROGDs really want to be men, they just are scared of being women. “They flee womanhood like a house afire, their minds fixed on escape, not on any particular destination.”
Why shouldn’t young girls run away from womanhood and towards testosterone injections? After all, according to modern society there is nothing special about being a woman. All that is required to be a woman is cosmetic surgery, the right clothes, and some high heels. Biological men winning beauty pageants proves that, doesn’t it? Why remain fertile and carry around bothersome breasts, when having a baby is the worst thing that could ever happen to you? Doesn’t it make sense to dispense with all that?
The Church, obviously, does not see things this way at all. Motherhood is essential. Not just for “society,” but also because motherhood is at the core of authentic womanhood. For most women, the desire to mother is an innate part of their very being. It is a drive that our entire society seems increasingly organized to frustrate, delay, and deny. Horrible consequences have ensued, not the least of which is that downplaying motherhood has turned being a woman into a game of dress-up. No amount of surgery, cosmetics, or clothing can possibly fake the ability to conceive, grow, birth, and feed a baby. Joseph, even in a very pretty dress, could still never have become the Mother of God.
The Orthodox Church must lead the way in restoring dignity and honor to motherhood and the family. Families are not what we “get around to” after we have made our fortunes. Raising children is not wasting anyone’s potential. Working outside the home is not somehow superior or more noble than caring and educating one’s children.
Children are a blessing. Motherhood is a gift. Womanhood is a spiritual as well as physical state of being.
Have you ever read the Orthodox Marriage service? Here is an excerpt that summarizes the importance the Church places on family:
Remember, O Lord our God, Your servant (Name) and Your servant (Name), and bless them. Give to them fruit of the womb, fair children, concord of soul and body. Exalt them as the cedars of Lebanon, and as well‑cultured vine; bestow on them a rich store of sustenance, so that having a sufficiency of all things for themselves, they may abound in every good work that is good and acceptable before You. Let them behold their children’s children as newly planted olive trees round about their table; and, being accepted before You, let them shine as stars in the Heavens, in You, our Lord, to Whom are due all Glory, honor, and worship as to Your eternal Father, and Your All‑Holy, Good, and Life‑creating Spirit, both now and ever, and to the ages of ages.
The Church has no vested interest in our current social paradigm of delayed marriage and delayed family. The Church has no vested interest in continuing to sever the connection between sex and conception in order to enable promiscuity. The Church has no interest in pretending that men and women are interchangeable. In fact, the exact opposite is true in each case. The Church, in fact, has an interest in promoting motherhood and families because, aside from those called to monastic life, that is where humans are happiest and most likely to work out their salvation.
Young women and young men aren’t listening to the Church you say? The message is not just for the young, though they listen more than you might think. The advice to put off family and children is coming from parents, grandparents, counselors, friends, family, and even priests. We need to reach all of these influencers as surely as we need to reach the young. Our current, dysfunctional societal paradigm is never going to provide better results as it is totally contrary to human nature. The Church needs to lead the way in rejecting it.
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Protect Childhood
The Orthodox Church created childhood. Before Christianity, children were considered nonpersons. Adult men could do with them as they saw fit. What we now call pedophilia was to the ancients perfectly normal:
And the most profitable way for a small child slave to earn money was as a sex slave. Brothels specializing in child sex slaves, particularly boys, were established, legal, and thriving businesses in ancient Rome. One source reports that sex with castrated boys was regarded as a particular delicacy, and that foundlings were castrated as infants for that purpose. Of course, the rich didn’t have to bother with brothels — they had all the rights to abuse their slaves (and even their children) as they pleased. And, again, this was perfectly licit.
Jeffrey Epstein is not an historical anomaly. In a fallen world, Jeffrey Epstein is the norm. The only reason you know that sexually abusing children is wrong is that Jesus Christ and His Church told you so. Without the teaching of the Orthodox Church, Epstein’s pedophile island would be a regular tourist attraction. The burden to fight for children is on us. No one else can.
As a Church, we have to redouble our efforts to protect children, particularly our girls. That means banning pornography. Yes, outright. Total ban. Lewdness is not “speech” and it should never be protected by any just society. Human trafficking provides the victims on which the porn industry depends. Porn addicts and destroys young men and women. Porn poisons relationships between the sexes. Porn makes men pathetic and sometimes violent. Porn convinces many young women that they are merely disposable objects for male pleasure.
Not just hardcore porn needs to go. Cardi B gyrating at the Grammys and Jennifer Lopez grinding on a pole at the Super Bowl also have to go. Young women, future mothers, should look up to the Mother of God, the female saints, their own mothers as role models. No one should think emulating wanna-be strippers is a good choice, no matter how rich and famous. The innocence of children is under assault on the Internet, on prime time TV, in schools, and pretty much everywhere else. It is up to the Church to stand up and tell everyone this is wrong.
The Church must also fight to keep the mentally ill and sexually perverted from having access to our children. No matter what any experts say, the depraved desires of adults do not trump the health, safety, and well-being of children. The Church must clearly articulate that children have a right to their innocence and that projecting sexual desires onto them is pure, Satanic evil.
But, you say – this is all impossible! We can’t ban pornography. We can’t stem the tide of public lewdness. We can’t keep inappropriate sexual material out of school curriculums. We can’t stop the tide of transgenderism.
True. If you count victory as elections, laws, court decisions – then we have no chance. But if you count victories as souls, then we win simply by being willing to fight against evil. No compromise with Satan is the necessary first step, what happens next is up to God.
We are not the first Christians to face such odds. We will not be the last. But we may be the first ones to give up this easily.
Don’t Change the Faith
More and more often, Orthodox academics and some clergy are advocating for female ordination. Women at the altar will draw more women to the Orthodox Faith, so we are told, and will keep our daughters from leaving the Church. This is so much ivory-tower hogwash. A society as confused as ours does not need even more blending of gender roles.
After 25 years of Orthodoxy, I can attest that women are fulfilling roles from parish council president to chanter to reader to choir director. The only place women do not serve is at the altar. And there is no reason they should. Mary as the Mother of God is at the center of Our Faith. Yet she did not consecrate and serve the Eucharist. Mary Magdalene and some other women are so important in our history that they have been given the title “Equal-to-the-Apostles.” They did not attempt to become priests. Even at times when the Faithful were largely female, the all-male priesthood as established by Christ has endured.
The Orthodox Faith is perfect. It is the same Faith which transformed the Roman Empire, survived Islam, converted hundreds of millions, and saw Communism thrown into the dustbin of history. Through all that time, the Church has relied on an untold number of good and faithful women. The Faith is good for women exactly as it is.
All that is needed is for the Church to stand up for what she already believes. For many millions of souls, both male and female, that will make all the difference.
Nicholas – member of the Western Rite Vicariate, a part of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese in America, a COVID refugee from the Greek Archdiocese
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Orthodox Christians also broadly favor a number of church positions that happen to align with those of the Catholic Church, such as the prohibition on women’s ordination. In fact, there appears to be more agreement with this position within Orthodoxy than within Catholicism, where majorities in some places say women should be able to become priests. For example, in Brazil, which has the world’s largest Catholic population, most Catholics say the Catholic Church should allow female ordination (78%). Similarly, in the United States, 59% of Catholics say the Catholic Church should allow women priests. Orthodox opinion is closely divided on the issue of female ordination in Russia and some other countries, but in no country surveyed do a majority of Orthodox Christians support ordaining women as priests. (In Russia and some other countries, roughly a fifth or more of respondents do not express an opinion on women’s ordination.)
Bravo, Nicholas! I have been blessed with a wonderful career and three challenging children. I frequently tell my beautiful children, who are now adults, that what brought me the greatest joy in my life was not my profession and its rewards but the experience of motherhood and nurturing my babies as they grew up. This always makes them smile because they know how cherished they have always been. I do not regret missing career opportunities because I had children. I do regret not having had more children because of my career.
Great article. My husband and I have 5 sons and God willing we’ll continue to add to our family. Nothing in life is easy and that includes parenting, BUT the rewards of Godly marriage and parenthood are so great compared to very many other things. It truly is a tragedy that even the church has been infected by this mindset of children being a burden or an afterthought. All the more reason to grow our families and raise them up in the way they should go. Perhaps a return of our culture to the joy of family as God intends will not be too far off.
Your family must be so beautiful! Three sons, two daughters here. Thank you for the comment.