(RNS) — Soon after the live broadcast began on Ancient Faith Radio, a media ministry aimed at Orthodox Christian listeners, the real-time commentary open to listeners on YouTube erupted with a stream of misogyny. The topic of the Jan. 30 broadcast, which included a pre-recorded radio documentary, was examining the call to restore female deacons in the Orthodox Church. Deacons make up the lowest and third order of clergy in the Orthodox Church, and not every parish has them. Where they exist, deacons primarily assist the priest with liturgical duties such as preparing the Eucharist and are almost always exclusively male.
“Why should I care about women trying to subvert the major orders?” asked one commenter.
“This is such a joke,” opined an opponent, while another chimed in that the subject was too sensitive for their 17-year-old son, and another cited St. Paul as saying, “women should stay silent because they talk too much and are too opinionated in Church.”
Yet another was plainer in their bias: “Deaconesses would turn the sanctuary into a brothel.”
Far from clarifying the question of women deacons, the episode added fuel to an already incendiary conversation about women’s ordination and the role of women in the church in general.
The Ancient Faith show was a response to a November symposium sponsored by the St. Phoebe Center for the Deaconess, a …
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“Why should I care about women trying to subvert the major orders?” asked one commenter.
“This is such a joke,” opined an opponent, while another chimed in that the subject was too sensitive for their 17-year-old son, and another cited St. Paul as saying, “women should stay silent because they talk too much and are too opinionated in Church.”
Yet another was plainer in their bias: “Deaconesses would turn the sanctuary into a brothel.”
Far from clarifying the question of women deacons, the episode added fuel to an already incendiary conversation about women’s ordination and the role of women in the church in general.
The Ancient Faith show was a response to a November symposium sponsored by the St. Phoebe Center for the Deaconess, a …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]