Armenian Reporter:

Set aside for a holy purpose

Women building up the body of Christ

Published: Saturday September 26, 2009

A deaconess serving in the Armenian Church. From Gregory Lima, The Costumes of Armenian Women.. Peter Carapetian

The conversation about the ordination of women in the Armenian Church, whether it is the diaconate or priesthood, certainly is not new. Anyone who has been an active churchgoer throughout his or her life has heard women (and men) wonder how the breadth of women's service in the church can expand into roles of active ministry.

An impasse

As a lifelong faithful member of the Armenian Church who has invested much time and energy into the study of my faith, I find myself researching more about this question every time it comes up. I am interested because I know many people who stand very strongly on both sides of the issue, and they seem to be at an impasse. Women who feel a calling to serve the church are frustrated that the priesthood is not open to them and the diaconate is almost a distant memory. On the other hand, there are those who feel strongly compelled to defend the tradition of the church, keeping things as they are and encouraging women to find satisfaction in other means of service outside ordination.

The central point of this impasse is the importance of ordination in the life of Armenian Church. One of the beautiful and meaningful parts of Armenian Christianity is the high place of sacraments in the church, of which ordination is one. So much more than a formality, the sacrament of ordination acknowledges and blesses God's call to a person and sets that person aside for a holy purpose.

It makes sense that any member of the Armenian Church who feels called by God to serve the church would look to ordained roles as the place to live out that call. Ordination in the Armenian Church occurs for minor orders (tbir, sub-deacon) and major orders (deacon, priest, bishop). While ordination to some of these roles (such as the priesthood) has never been open to women, women have historically been included in some ordained roles in the Armenian Church. Therefore, this question about the ministry of women in the Armenian Church is still important because women today continue to be gifted and called by God to be ordained and set aside to serve a holy purpose. It is necessary then to examine which roles have historically had ordained women, and to understand why women belong in ordained ministry.

Of course there are many ways to serve the church outside ordination. In fact, it is a truth necessary to the church's survival: "For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members of one another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us." (Rom. 12:4–6) St. Paul, from the earliest days of the Christian movement, stressed the importance of bringing a diversity of gifts and abilities to the building up of the body of Christ. Without this diversity of gifts, the church would not be able to function: "Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many.... If the ear would say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,' that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be?" (1 Cor 12:14, 16–17)

Like a human body made up of different parts, the body of Christ has many different parts – clergy, Sunday-school teachers, parish council members, choir singers, altar servers, children, senior citizens, and plenty of faithful filling the pews – that are necessary for it to fully function.

Are you an ear or an eye?

Thinking of women in ministry in the Armenian Church is sometimes treated as analogous to giving an ear the role of an eye. The fact that one is created female assigns her to certain tasks and functions within the church, distinguishing a person's gifts based on gender. It gives an easy pattern to things, such as what my priest told me when I was a child: "Boys serve on the altar, girls sing in the choir." To give a woman a leadership role in active ministry within the body of Christ is said to suggest that one begin walking on one's hands rather than one's feet. In other words, it is said to violate the natural and created order.

However, there is nothing in Scripture or Tradition that dictates a person's gifts are based on gender. The various gifts given to us for the uplifting of the body of Christ are not determined by gender but by the Spirit (Rom 12:6–8; 1 Cor 12:7–11,27–28, Galatians 5:22–23). A man is not a gifted preacher, nor a woman a gifted singer, because they are male or female; they possess these gifts because, as Scripture tells us, God gave them these gifts for the building up of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Jesus calls each of his followers without discrimination to be "salt of the earth" and "light of the world" (Mt. 5:13–16) If a person gifted in finance wanted to serve the church, it would most benefit the church to assign that person as the Parish Council treasurer, not the Sunday School principal. If God has given a woman gifts as a spiritual leader, does it make any sense to ask her to find satisfaction in any other role? To tell the eye to listen rather than see – does this not also seem to violate the natural and created order?

The centrality of women

Not only are gifts given by the Spirit without regard to gender, but so also are callings. God's call to women, and indeed to all humanity, culminates in God's call to Mary to be the mother of God Incarnate, Jesus Christ. When one walks into an Armenian church, it is not Jesus but his mother Mary who is the central figure on the altar. She is the human being par excellence – the model of humility and obedience all Christians must strive for.

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