Women in Orthodoxy

NIKI J. TSIRONIS

The relatively marginal place of women in the contemporary Orthodox Church (as compared with the Western Christian denominations) might lead the casual observer to the assumption that this has always been the case in the tradition of Eastern Christianity. However, this would be far from the truth, as women have played an essential role in the spread of Christianity during the first centuries of our own era, as well as in the foundational development of the Orthodox world during the Byzantine era. Their role is testified in the written sources as well as in the material remains of the ancient and medieval periods. Women in Byzantium remained to a large extent anonymous and despite the flourishing of gender studies in recent years history cannot go back to retrieve all the anonymous women who so fundamentally and basically served society and the church. Speaking about women in Orthodoxy, we refer not only to the extraordinary amount of martyrs and saints, but also empresses and lay anon­ymous women who played an important part in the Orthodox tradition. This article will concentrate on the Byzantine period, as it was during that time that the presence of women marked the formation of the church.

In the context of the ancient Greco- Roman world, the role of women as taking precedence in religious rites and rituals (espe­cially those of the home) was self-evident. This spirit seems to have been maintained in the early Christian centuries. In the gospels the place of women appears to have been crucial, as they were the first to hear the message of Christ and to witness his teaching, his mission, his sacrifice on the cross, and his resurrection. Mary Magdalene and the other Marys are only a few of the women who surrounded Christ during his earthly life. The Mother of God holds a unique place among women in the church (“our tainted nature’s solitary boast”) as she was the one through whom the Word of God was made incarnate. According to Orthodox tradition, Mary was not only present at the crucifixion but was also the first of all the disciples to witness his glorious resurrection. In the course of centuries the figure of Mary attained increasing importance and from the 9th century onwards she became the symbol par excellence of the mystery of the incarnation. In this sense a female icon carries the great weight of the representa­tion of Christ among the world.

The early Christian period is marked by the multitude of female martyrs who – even with their blood – helped the message of Christianity reach contemporary society. In the New Testament (Lk. 8.2–3) we encoun­ter references to women as sponsoring patrons of the early missionary efforts of Christianity. Priscilla and Aquila, a notable couple within the Pauline circle, probably sustained in a most decisive way the activity of St. Paul. The earliest reference to a deaconess is encountered in the Pauline Epistle to the Romans (16.1) and refers to Phoebe, a young sister from Kenchreae (near Corinth) whom Paul commends to the Romans. In the same chapter of his epistle, Paul refers to another nine women out of a whole of twenty-four notable people mentioned; among them, the above-mentioned Priscilla, the scholarly missionary and patron of the churches in Corinth and Ephesus. The notable female disciple Junia (mentioned together with Andronicus) is explicitly referred to as an Apostle; and she along with many other women (such as the explicitly named Mary, Tryphosa, Tryphaena, Persis, and so on) recall for us the early, apostolic, Chris­tian environment where women played a vital role in the life of the church and its proclamatory mission. It seems that the role of the deaconess designated an ordained member of the church with specific duties and obligations. Sixty-four inscriptions from the Eastern Roman Empire testify to the existence of ordained deaconesses, while a few others refer to female presbyters (the meaning of which is not entirely clear).

Part of the body of Christian texts which did not find their way into the New Testament, such as the apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla, recount the fascination of the young betrothed virgin who for three days and three nights, without eating or drinking, remained fastened to the window like a spider listening to the words of Paul (Kraemer 1988; Lipsius and Bonnet 1891). According to the Acts, Thecla followed Paul and when thrown to the lions she was miraculously saved. It is inter­esting that when Paul declined to baptize her, Thecla baptized herself in a ditch of water. Although the events related are probably legendary, it remains significant that the icon of Thecla as a leading female apostle was still convincing, and was set out in this literature to encourage Christian disciples in the post-apostolic generation. The place where Thecla is said to have spent the last years of her life, in Seleucia of Asia Minor, became the focal point of her cult which – as surviving ampullae found in the area show – was very popular and attracted large numbers of pilgrims from all over the Mediterranean. The Emperor Zeno built a large basilica there in 476. The remains of the basilica are surrounded by a large number of monastic dwellings, which further testify to the popularity of her cult and her continuing role as a patron of female ascetics. In the mid-4th century it was a place to which Gregory the Theologian retired for a time to prepare his ministry in Constantinople when he preached the Five Theological Orations.

Plate 79 A nun of the Romanian community of Voronets outside the famous “painted church.” Photo by John McGuckin.

The cessation of persecutions and the foundation of Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire that was to survive from the 4th to the 15th centuries, were times and events also marked by a distinguished female figure, namely the Empress Helena, mother of the first Chris­tian emperor, Constantine the Great. The two were celebrated together as saints of the church on their Feastday of May 21. Empress Helena through her patronage of church life in Jerusalem became the one who discovered the True Cross of the Lord, in 326. Following this event the empress ordered a church to be built at the site of the discovery: it was the Church of the Holy Anastasis (Holy Sepulchre, as it is known in the West), which was consecrated in 335. The event is still commemorated every September 14, the Feast of the Eleva­tion of the True Cross, and it represents one of the most important festivals of the Orthodox Church.

The 4th century is also marked by the Cappadocian fathers, who faithfully com­bined Christian doctrine with Greek thought. More important for our present purposes is the fact that they molded the profile of the women of their entourage in a way that greatly influenced Christian mentalites regarding the role and activity of women at home and society. Macrina, the eldest child of Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa’s family became the sub­ject of a Vita written by St. Gregory of Nyssa in the form of a letter addressed to the monk Olympius. Macrina became the higumen of a monastery at the banks of the river Iris (a place of outstanding beauty) even before her brother St. Basil the Great had started his monastic settlement nearby after visiting Pachomius’ coenobitic mon­astery at Tabennisi, in Egypt. In this same convent lived the mother of Macrina, Aemilia, with whom the saint, as it is said in the Life, had decided never to separate after the death of the young man to whom her parents had betrothed her. Macrina had a reputation as an ascetic that led many contemporaries to compare her to Thecla herself. The Vita tells that at the hour of Macrina’s birth, Aemilia had a dream in which a radiant figure addressed the child she was carrying by the name of Thecla. The life and works of Macrina are narrated by her brother Gregory most vividly and the figure of the saint is fashioned on a hagiographical model, so as to be held up for emulation by future generations. Rarely had female figures been ever held up in this way in previous Greek literature. In doing this the Cappadocian fathers set out a new basis and status of Christian women in society. St. Gregory the Theolo­gian does much the same in relation to his sister Gorgonia, using her funeral oration to elevate her as an ascetic example. The vir­tues that led Macrina to sanctity include chastity, the mortification of her body, obedience to her mother, humility in all respects, poverty, and almsgiving to every­body in need. Macrina’s Life shows the way in which in the 4th century, martyrdom is being replaced by the new martyrly wit­ness of virginity. Later in life and while higumen at her convent, Macrina acquired the power of healing, the casting out of demons, and also prophecy. There are also stories of how her giving of food to the poor miraculously did not cause her monastery’s store of supplies to be dimin­ished. Macrina’s virtues echo the expecta­tions of Orthodox Byzantine society of women. In the first Christian centuries, the renunciation of the body became a central issue in the practice of Christianity and undoubtedly it is linked to the rise of monasticism (both in its eremitic form ini­tiated by Antony the Great (ca. 290–346) and in the coenobitic form propounded first by Pachomius and then by Basil the Great).

Women of authority had a massive influ­ence over the development of Orthodoxy in its history. Christian empresses exercised their power carefully and wisely on many occasions for the benefit of the church (Holum 1982; Connor 2004). One of the most characteristic examples was the Augusta Pulcheria, who acted as a regent to her younger brother Theodosius II, who later married Athinais Eudocia. Pulcheria took vows of chastity and according to the sources transformed the imperial palace almost into a convent. She opposed fervently the doctrines of Nestorius and Eutyches, and was a passionate advocate for the title Theotokos, seeing in the Virgin Mary a powerful advocate for all human­kind. She modeled herself on the interces­sory role of the Blessed Virgin, a fact which

Nestorius objected to, as well as to her defense of the Theotokos title (McGuckin 1994).

Almost a century later, the reign of Justinian, the most noteworthy emperor of the early Byzantine era, was enhanced by the role of his wife, the Empress Theodora, who (although of lowly origins, according to the historian Procopius) is probably the only woman of the Byzantine Empire that a non-specialist might have heard of. Theodora’s Miaphysite christological sym­pathies influenced the theological develop­ments of the 6th century, and were behind Justinian’s regular efforts to reconcile the Egyptian and Syrian anti-Chalcedonian parties after her death, not least his desire to reconcile the schism definitively at the Council of Constantinople II in 553. Similarly, the presence of empresses during the Iconoclastic era immeasurably assisted the cause of the Iconophiles during the century-long debate over the veneration of images. The issue of the relationship between women and the veneration of icons is still an open field of discourse in modern scholarship. Two figures need to be mentioned at this point: first, the Empress Irene who put an end to the first phase of the Iconoclastic controversy; and secondly, the Empress Theodora. Irene, the wife of Emperor Leo IV, acted as regent to her son Constantine VI when the emperor died in 780. Irene, with the support of Patriarch Tarasius, summoned the Seventh Ecumeni­cal Council, which ratified the cult of icons and the relics of the saints. Similarly, Theodora, the wife and later widow of Emperor Theophilus, in 843, who acted as regent to her son Michael, reinstated the cult of images which was celebrated as the Triumph of Orthodoxy (still celebrated in the Orthodox Church every first Sunday of Lent). St. Theodora is portrayed along with her young son at the upper register of the prototype icon of the Triumph of

Orthodoxy (two examples of this icono- graphic type survive today, one at the Brit­ish Museum in London and another at the Benaki Museum in Athens). In subsequent centuries, one should add to this list women of the imperial court like Anna Comnene, the daughter of Alexius I Comnenos, but also Zoe and innumerable other Byzantine aristocratic women who used their ability to be involved in societal life (because of their gifts of wealth, talent, and education) in ways that greatly advanced the life and mis­sion of the church.

Another example of female talent used to powerful theological ends is the 9th-century poet Cassia, a legendary figure most com­monly associated with her troparion on the repentant harlot which is still sung in the Orthodox Church on Tuesday in the Holy Week. Cassia’s biographical details have not been established with any certainty but, judging from her surviving works, she must have been of aristocratic descent. In her poetry, Cassia propounds the venera­tion of icons and exalts the role of women in the fight against Iconoclasm. She is one of the very few women whose poetry came down to us signed in her own name (Tsironis 2002).

In Orthodox hagiography, over a wide span of time, women appear in a number of capacities: as mothers, daughters, nuns and higumens, providers of charity, compassion, and philanthropy. In the nar­ratives, they often give the impression they are transparent to the grace of God and to visions revealing divine grace. The earliest tales of martyrs from the first Christian centuries are followed in the history of hagi­ography by tales of “transvested” nuns and female saints in the 5th and 6th centuries, who dressed as men in order to assume the most severe forms of ascetical life (sometimes merging as unknown “beardless eunuchs” in the life of male communities). From the 6th century onwards we also encounter narratives focusing on coenobitic nuns and married laywomen, who dominate the scene through the 8th and 9th centuries. Starting from Mary of Egypt, the exemplary harlot whose repentance and total renuncia­tion of the body led her to sanctity, to women of a domestic environment who attained sanctity through charity and endur­ance of many sorrows (one case records the abuse of husbands as a cause of martyrdom), Byzantine hagiography covers the whole range of paradigms of the multiple ways which may lead a woman disciple to sanctity. Despite its ancient character and limited range of socially open roles, this suggests that the road to holiness is broad and wide for women disciples, just as it is for men; that they have equal challenges and capacities in their Christian lives. At the same time these texts reveal to the reader the multiple func­tions of women in the context of medieval society and the Orthodox Church of the time. The case of the transvested ascetic female saints is of great significance for understanding the challenges faced by women in Orthodoxy. The Life of St. Mary/ Marinos is not the first instance where a woman puts on men’s clothing in order to escape societal expectations and pursue an ascetic life. St. Thecla is also reported in her Life to have put on men’s clothes in order to continue her pursuit of St. Paul at Myra. Nicholas Constas, in his study of the cult of the Virgin in late Antiquity, analyzes the symbolism and the complex issues underlying this form of cross-dressing: “Through the medium of clothing, individ­uals could achieve relative autonomy or advantage in interaction with others” (2003: 353). Clothes were thought of as absorbing the qualities of the people wear­ing them and in this respect the otherwise deviant act of wearing male clothes was accepted as an action through which women negated the seductive nature of their sex in pursuit of the Kingdom of

God. St. Mary/Marinos – venerated both in East and West – dressed like a man and entered a monastery together with her father, aiming to lead an ascetic life (see Constas, in Talbot 1996: 1–12). A similar pattern of seeking anonymity and freedom to follow God despite all accusations and challenges is encountered in the Life of St. Matrona of Perge, a fervent defender of Chalcedonian Orthodoxy against the Monophysite policy of the Emperor Anastasius I (491–518), who spent her early years in disguise in the monastery of Bassianos in Constantinople (Acta Sanc­torum Novembris 3). More than ten lives of transvested nuns survive from the period from the 5th to the 9th centuries and they testify to the need of women to supersede gender boundaries, even by deception if necessary. As Judith Herrin puts it, in an essay entitled “In Search of Byzantine Women”: “The monastic disguises adopted by women enabled them to simulate a holiness reserved by male ecclesiastical authorities to men only. To the church fathers, the very idea of a holy woman was a contradiction in terms, which women could only get round by pretending to be men” (Cameron and Kuhrt 1983: 179).

Byzantine hagiography gives us an insight into various other kinds of female sanctity. Ascetics and hermits like Mary of Egypt and Theoktiste of Lesbos attained to holiness through the renunciation of the body; coenobitic nuns like Elizabeth the Wonderworker and Athanasia of Aegina, through their miracles during their lifetime or after their death; housewives paid for their benevolence by suffering death from their husbands’ violent hands, like Mary the Younger or Thomais of Lesbos (Talbot 1996). The women who became saints dur­ing this time were thus married or unmar­ried, pursued an ascetic way of life or not, defended the true dogma of the church or lived quiet lives, as the case may be Sanctity.

thus follows no fixed recipe and women arrive to the state of holiness from many various paths and ways. Their lives provide an example which sustained women during the Byzantine and post-Byzantine era.

The period from 1453 to the present has not witnessed major new developments as far as the role of women in a male- dominated environment has been con­cerned. The dawn of the new millennium found the Orthodox Church relatively well behind Western Christian denominations, which had made considerable efforts to include women in the official, liturgical, and pastoral life of the church. How­ever, Orthodox women continued as usual setting an example of Christian love and sacrifice within the church. The figure of Mother Maria Skobtsova (married, divorced, and with children before becom­ing an ascetic), who dedicated her life to the service of the poor and the persecuted, and who died in a Nazi concentration camp on the last day of German occupation at Ravensbruck, is not unique, even though it is exemplary (Hackel 2003). Her recent can­onization by the Russian Orthodox Church has elevated a remarkable woman, the twists and turns in whose life were all raised up in the end by her complete dedication to God. In modern times Orthodox women still work for the glory of God and the spread of his kingdom, motivated by a deep belief in the royal priesthood of believers and in the responsibility of the creature towards its Creator. The place ofwomen in the counsels of the church for the future; their place in its offices of authority, and its common social and missionary strategies for the centuries ahead, is something that remains to be worked out and something that calls to be worked out, for the newly ascendant educa­tion and professional eminence of so many modern women demands an extensive reconsideration of the role of women in the Orthodox Church worldwide. Such a discussion has been partially initiated in the modern era, but a long road lies ahead, demanding much Christian honesty and willingness in all the Orthodox communi­ties – not only those that already have large numbers of professionally educated women, but also those (for historical rea­sons) with less.

SEE ALSO: Contemporary Orthodox Theol­ogy; Deaconess; Marriage; Monasticism; St. Elizaveta Feodorovna (1864–1918); Virgins; Widows

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS

Cameron, A. and Kuhrt, A. (eds.) (1983) Images of Women in Antiquity. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.

Connor, C. (2004) Women of Byzantium. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Constas, N. (2003) Proclus of Constantinople and the Cult of the Virgin in Late Antiquity. Leiden: Brill. Hackel, S. (2003) Pearl of Great Price: The Life of Mother Maria Skobtsova 1891–1945, Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press.

Holum, K. (1982) Theodosian Empresses: Women and Imperial Dominion in Late Antiquity. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Kraemer, R. (1988) Maenads, Martyrs, Matrons, Monastics. Philadelphia: Fortress Press.

Lipsius, R. A. and Bonnet, M. (1891) Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha. Leipzig: Mendelssohn. McGuckin, J. A. (1994) St. Cyril of Alexandria: The Christological Controversy. Leiden: E. J. Brill. Talbot, A. M. (1996) Holy Women of Byzantium.

Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks.

Tsironis, Ν. (2002) Κασσιανή η Υμνοοδός. Athens.