Sunday, November 27, 2011
Male Ordination
The Greeks have a special, long ceremony to vest a Bishop in the Church. Once the Bishop is vested and begins to serve then a deacon or priest INCENSES the bishop NINE times. The icon of Christ is incensed only three times under any circumstances (bishop or no bishop present.) The REASON that a bishop is incensed with the censor NINE times is because the bishop, mystically, from the time of vesting until the service is over is THE LIVING ICON OF CHRIST whereas the wooden painting on the iconostasis is NOT a living icon. The Greeks and Russians may in theory only consecrate Bishops from among monastics because the monastic life of the ascetic renunciate IS the mystical life of Christ. It is true that in recent centuries widowed priests have been given a nominal monastic tonsure and then consecrated as bishops but this is not a good practice. Monasticism is a way of life and you cannot learn it by reading "Monasticism for Dummies" or taking a semester of "Asceticism 101" and doing some multiple choice, true or false and essay questions. For a male to be ordained as a priest he is allowed to be married BUT he must have been a virgin prior to marriage and must marry a virgin. Once he is ordained, should his wife die, he is expected to enter a monastery. A man who marries a widow may not be ordained as a priest. A man who is physically imperfect, missing fingers, limbs, eye, ear, may not be ordained because the males animals sacrificed in the Old Testament must have no obvious imperfections. Once a priest or bishop is ordained/consecrated then even if he is maimed he may continue to serve. IF a male is bleeding, say from some wound or hemorrhoids he is ritually unclean and may not celebrate the liturgy/mass nor receive communion and this is the same reason why a woman who gives birth may not enter the church for 40 days and after 40 days there is a brief churching prayer. A woman may not receive communion during menstruation. A priest may not hunt or slaughter animals. IF a priest should be driving a car and kills someone in an accident then he may never serve another liturgy/mass. If a male seeks ordination but as a child was molested and penetrated then he is ritually unfit for ordination. All this is very ancient tradition. I am not making it up. I have a copy here of the 1000 page Pedalion (The Rudder) ... a rudder guides, steers a ship so the Pedalion is all these traditions written down. I am dredging all this up from my memory to illustrate how there are reasons why no female and even many males are unsuitable for ordination. Eastern Orthodoxy has always been driven by mysticism. The West, Rome, retained a fair measure of mysticism but introduced a lot of Aristotelian type logic and legalism. The center piece of worship is always the mystical supper of the eucharist. The sermon is kind of a side-show event. Once the Reformation comes along then the sermon and the bible are front and center and the eucharist takes a back seat until gradually, it vanishes into a monthly or quarterly or perhaps even yearly token event (depending on the denomination) .
