I am a Woman and a Priest

There are no women priests in the Christian Orthodox church, so I go to Church when it's empty. I am my own priest, and I am a woman.

The first teachers of the Christian Church were women. In their homes, they gathered people and taught the new religion, spreading it. 

You can see these first women priests in the catacombs of Rome from 100 AD, where are the oldest Christian frescoes and mosaics. One mosaic shows the face of a woman with the word "Episcopa" around it - meaning "woman bishop".

Jesus never said that women are dirty or not worthy of being a priest, of entering the church or the altar, like the Christian Orthodox church says.

This is a political statement, made by those who decided to use the new church for political purpose. Men were leading the politcal life - all due respect, politics is hard work. When Christianity became widely spread and strong enough to influence a critical number of people, they decided to take over the leadership of this new social movement. So they decided to exclude women from being Christian priests at the Council of Nicea.

Coming back to the idea that "woman is dirty", which is why she is excluded from the altar and from priesthood, this is based on the menstrual blood, considered "dirty".

If you ever have the courage to taste it, you will see that it tastes exactly like the blood of your finger, when you cut yourself by accident. It is the same blood that flows through your veins, and those of any man.  There is no other "dirt" in it. I tasted it. In fact, I challenge you here and now to taste it, if you still believe that your period makes you, or any woman, inferiour and impure. It is a relic idea left from un-higienic times, that has not been brought up to date. And don't get me started on virginity, Mary and condoms.

Jesus never forbade any woman who had her period to enter the Church - just read the Bible. And anyway, it wasn't him who wrote it, but other men, later, from their memories and their point of view. I mean, what, He called to Him the blind, the prostitutes, He brought back Lazarus from the dead, but to women on their period He said - "Sorry, not you!"?

As to the idea that sex is dirty and sexual pleasure a sin, this was introduced by Saint Augustine, not Jesus. Augustine was a man who loved women, and not only one. From some reason (probably love hurt), he became a monk and an ascetic, and he wrote some very persuasive books about giving up the pleasure of sex - making it a sin.

This idea became dogma, because he wrote a lot and well - "it's written". His advantage was that he wrote at a time when few wrote, and little was kept. Had he written on Facebook, instead of ecclesiastical tomes, would anybody had paid any attention?  ("It's written - on Facebook"?!)

For Augustine, this was a way to vent. "These nasty women", that he loved so much, were sour grapes, and he made them responsible for this "sin".

The Bible and Christian dogma is a bit funny for its contradictions. Elsewhere in the Bible there is the Song of Songs, one of the most beautiful of love poems of the time - both soulful and erotic:

"Wear me on your breast like a seal, wear me on your arm like a bracelet".

(This is from a Romanian version - reading the English translations it's "heart" not "breast", amusingly. Anyway, the Song mentions "breasts" many times.)

Now that we clarified the "woman" bit, let's get on to the "woman priest".

I believe God lives in my soul, and I cannot give this responsibility to someone else. Because nobody knows better than me what is in my soul, what the Divine voice and my intuition whispers to me.  For me, it is a poet (yes, a man), who said it best:

"I want to dance, as I have never danced before!

I don't want God to feel,
inside me,

a prisoner in chains!"

(L. Blaga)

When I listen to this inner voice of my soul, I become my own priest. And I am a woman. My friends come to me to tell me their woes and to find solace, understanding, forgiveness.  I am their confessor.

Rarely have I found a priest to say to me anything more fitting than this voice. And those I did find, told me to go somewhere quiet, maybe in nature, or somewhere where I can be alone and meditate, and to listen to my inner voice, which will lead me. The priest didn't take this on himself.

So when I say I am a priest and a woman, I listen to and appreciate the voice of my divine intuition, and my body, capable to create, to enjoy, to be strong.

And to finish, a joke:

In a monastery comes a novice and finds out they copy the holy books from other copies. He goes to the Abbot and says:

"Father, what if there was a mistake in the first copies, and we keep copying it?"

"It's not possible, we are careful!" - but the priest goes to check anyway. A few days later, the monks get worried:

"Where is the Abbot?"

So the go and look for him, and they look, and they look, until at length they find him in the lowest cellar, the one where they keep the original of the Holy Book. They find him in tears, banging his head against the book.

"What happened, Father?"

"It was 'Celebrate', not 'Celibate'!"...

Links – Bibliography:

BBC Documentary: Divine Women, Bettany Hughes, http://www.bettanyhughes.co.uk/divine-women

Bible, Song of Songs: http://www.bibliaortodoxa.ro/carte.php?id=9&cap=1

Lucian Blaga, Poemele Luminii (1919) – Vreau sa joc: 
ttp://www.romanianvoice.com/poezii/poezii/vreausajoc.php

Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch (1970)
Alexandra Chiriac si Madalina Vaidescu, conversations