On Headcoverings and Modesty of Women in Church

[尼古拉前执事]

Another good post on headcoverings in another folder of the forum here: http://www.euphrosynoscafe.com/forum/vi ... =6016#6016

[Liudmilla]

I think the point is not whether or not one gender or another covers up or not. The point is that you go to church to pray...certainly not to oogle. But in order to pray you need to prepare yourself, if you don't prepare yourself then distractions will occur...simple human frailty. I don't think we all go to church with the purpose of distracting others, if so we go for the wrong reasons.

However, there is one point beng over looked with all this that that if the social factor that the church provides us. Where else can you interact with like people?

[ania]

Let's face it - we men are rarely the object of visual adoration - but women - yes, you definitely are the object of both visual adoration (by men) and visual jealousy ( by other women).
Don't get me wrong, it's not your fault as a woman that you are beautiful - but we men are programmed to look at atttractive women.
ao

What on Earth makes you think men aren't objects of visual adoration? My friends & I, during on a night on the town, or a day at the beach, or sitting by my apartment building's pool, or riding the metro, or even <<gasp>> at church (I'm in the choir, & I stand where I can't see down into the church, so I don't do it very often), quite often check out the guys, & some of them are not just good-looking, their down-right gorgeous. Women are programed the same way, to look at beauty. Maybe I just lack the self-control (quite possible), but I think if men wore headcoverings in church, it might make me more disinclined to check out the cute guys. :mrgreen:
Ania

[Justin Kissel]

[ania]

What, hard to believe that women look too? We're not blind ya know.

[Justin Kissel]

We are on this topic on another thread now! Argh!

[Seraphim Reeves]

Miriam,

Natasha wrote that women are supposed to pray with heads covered because it says so in the Bible. If one examines the Bible, one will find that God also told MEN to cover their heads when they pray. The church chose to abandon this practice because it was too Jewish and since they wanted to distance themselves from the Jews…. there went the head coverings for men.

I question if this was their motive - any evidence for this opinion?

As far as I knew, Orthodox practice is based upon the teaching of St.Paul; what justifiable reason do we have to differ with him?

Then there is that whole thing about the inferiority of women. The church fiercely debated for centuries as to whether women even had a soul, so it is not surprising that the role of women is relegated to such a low position.

I think you're inflating a relatively minor (and incorrect) opinion voiced by a handful of people - basically you're giving this more importance than it ever had. Besides, how could anyone hold such a position, given the Church's veneration of the Mother of God?

As far as women being subodinate to men in family life, that is due both to the natural order (as St.Paul explained), and it's less pleasant aspects (which we are to seek to remedy) are a consequence of the fall and will be with us until we reach the world to come (as outlined in Genesis after Adam and Eve sinned.) We're a culture obsessed with all things being "equal" in a way that the Prophets and Apostles were not. Being children of the various godless revolutions that have made a clean sweep of Christendom since the "enlightenment", it's hard for us to put aside this false egalitarianism without feeling we're offending justice.

This is why modern westerners find the Bible's ethical norms regarding the treatment of slaves a scandal, it's promotion of monarchy to be "not with the times", and anything it has to say regarding the "place" of women, barbaric - we're all convinced "everyone is equal", even though this is manifestly not the case.

While Christ elevated womankind, the church elders persisted in de-elevating her at every turn.

This sounds like the kind of thing hippy-nuns used to say back in my Novus Ordo Roman Catholic days - Christ the supposed feminist, vs. a dark, disturbingly male, grouchy "patriarchal" Church. Of course, there is not a wit of evidence in the Holy Scriptures to support the idea that He rejected authentic gender roles for men and women. In fact, the inflated, quasi-feminist portrayal of Christ is only found in antiquity in one place - amongst the myths of the heretical gnostic sects, who also taught that St.Mary Magdalene was our Lord's "lover", that the so called "God of the Old Testament" was in fact a demon, and that the Saviour was in fact the devil (the "gnosis giving serpent" who undermines the rule of the "demiurge" - the gnostic name for "the Old Testament God").

The gnostics were also the only "Christian type" group in early times to ordain women, along with other liberal "Christian" pipe dreams.
What is funny/odd, is that the gnostic "exaltation of women" was not so much an "exaltation" of women, but a manifestation of their contempt for the creation, humanity, and the roles this world places us in (since they're convinced that this world is the creation of a hateful, "lesser god.") Though todays gnostics (liberals) do not typically (at least consciously) believe in a literal "demiurge", they certainly harbour a mindset which is tantamount to proclaiming "I reject the God of the Orthodox as being untrue, but were He to exist, I would hate Him and refuse Him!" It's true... there really haven't been any new heresies since lucifer fell from the heavens...

Makes one wonder, what about womankind, scared the men of the times. Women became the “source” and the “cause” of men’s, hence society’s, problems.

According to St.Paul, it was Eve who got the ball of sin rolling, by heeding satan. This doesn't absolve Adam, but the Apostle himself cites this as a fact. It is precisely because Adam entertained a disordered relationship with his beloved, than sin entered the world - this is St.Paul's conclusion, and why he admonishes wives to submit to their husbands.

When womankind complained, she was told that a husband’s abuse was deserved, to bear it as her due; she had no right to complain.

What most people don't realize, is just how good Christian wives have historically had things. While opinions fed by anti-realistic philosophies now predominate and totally disrupt our ability to judge these things rationally, the truth remains that even our post-modern western world still has a vision of "marriage" which is fundamentally Christian.

Historically, wives were perceived as property. This was true in semitic cultures (stilll true in much of the Middle East where Islam predominates), it was true in Africa, in Asia, etc. Even in pagan Rome, while economic circumstances often made life comfortable, the husband (the "pater familias") was basically a god in his family, having powers of life and death over his children, and while he had contractual obligations to his wife, this was still not the Christian "idea" of marriage.

While we err by excess, even our modern "romantic" ideas about married love have their roots in traditional "patriarchal" Christian doctrine on marriage. For rather than marriage simply being a contract, or even proprietery (the wife literally owned by the husband, and numbered amongst his goods), it is a sacramental joining of persons. The husband has responsibilities to his wife that are simply unheard of in other cultures, even relatively civilized ones. Indeed, he can only have one wife, since the goals of a Christian marriage are primarily spiritual, and not economic or even pragmatic.

In short, the traditional Christian ideals regarding married life, and gender roles, are not backward at all. It is our modern ideas which are problematic, since they're divorced from reality - they come from a culture overwhelmed by fantasies of man's autonomy (to the point we even have foolish people saying that gender itself is a "choice"!)

When abandoned by her husband, it became her fault and her just deserts.

Says who? Last I checked, it was a sin. Indeed, the Church (and Christian culture) is quite unique amongst other cultures, in that it actually viewed male philandering as being adulterous!

Unable to support herself and her children, that is if her husband did not take them away, she was condemned as the lowest of the low and doomed to poverty.

This unfortunately was often true, if she was abandoned or widowed. This is why throughout the Holy Scriptures, the place of the widowed (and just as easily the abandoned) and the fatherless is underlined. This, imho, is one of the greatest sins of our times - the plight of single mothers and their children. While it is true that most of these women are "single mothers" due to a sin they had a part in, the fact also remains that they are typically the "lesser guilty" party in that event, and this past sin is quite irrelevent to the responsibility these absent fathers have to those women and their children. As far as I'm concerned, those passages can be read to apply just as much to them, as they can to the "widowed" destitute mothers of past ages.

Speaking of this Miriam, just made me realize something - while it's true that widowed women/abandoned women and their children often suffered a great deal in times past, where does one find the phenomenon of poor, single mothers more - in lands overwhelmed by that old fashioned "patriarchal" Christian faith, or in our supposedly sophisticated, "liberated", "womyn loving" post-Christian west?

Children were taught the prejudices of the fathers.

...and not every prejudice is bad. If we were, as a society, less tolerant, we probably would not be in the bad way that we are now. It's true, many social conventions can just be chauvenistic - but the idea that every intolerance and prejudice is "bad" is a modern fantasy, and one with no good argument behind it.

Often an abused became the abuser.

And this has changed where liberal "values" dominate?

Attempts to make changes to the social norms were frequently met with disaster, condemnation or death.

Examples?

Let’s not forget that whole witch thing either. It happened in Orthodoxy as much as any other religion. It’s just not talked about.

a) I dispute that it was to the extent of the Inquisition (though the Inquisition itself was not as extensive or bloody as it's often made out to be...not good, but overblown, and typically for polemical rather than historical reasons.) The only "crazy" witch hunts I'm aware of (like the notorious "Salem trials") occured in the Protestant context.

b) Have you ever considered that witchcraft has and still does exist? It shouldn't be surprising that a culture might have a problem with people dabbling in black arts.

This leads me to ask, “what about the modesty and integrity of men”? Men can be and are as much affected by fashion as women … the whole tight jean thing, for instance. You gentlemen can wear them and not give it a second thought.

You're right. Modesty is increasingly becoming a problem amongst men. While some here have denied it, at least part of this has to do with the "gaying" of men in general that is occuring - which of course makes sense, since men have been basically taught to have contempt for women (typically by seeing amongst their peers nothing but ruined, confused women, in addition to being fed entertainments which are either directly or indirectly pornographic.)

Christian men should not dress immodestly, period.

The effect that they have on WOMEN doesn’t even enter into your mind. The view from behind as you make those prostrations is at times…for lack of a nicer word… interesting. Then there are those knit tee shirts, which accentuate all those loverly, and not so loverly, masculine features. Modesty works both ways. What applies to one gender should apply to the other. So before you run around judging womankind, clean up your own act.

While it's true that male immodesty does exist (and is becoming more common), it is a worse problem (and has been for some time) with women. This is in large part because of the constitution of men and women (which is a part of nature), and how that natural constitution is abused and perverted by sin. Thus, men being more visual (and also fallen) are more easily wounded by certain sights. This is not to say women cannot sin in this way - it's just an issue of who has more of an inclination for this. In addition, women (given over to sin) know they can have power over men by using their feminine wiles, or more often than not, simply like the attention dressing shamelessly will get them (vanity.)

Also, to be fair, the men in this forum who have brought up this issue (of women showing up to Church dressed immodestly) are not being hypocritical - I highly doubt they are showing up to Church dressed in the manner you're describing (which I agree, is inappropriate anywhere, let alone the House of God.)

I do not see why some women (not necessarily you) are so offended by men who plead that women be modest, particularly in Church, since to be frank, these are the best of men! It's not the men who wants women to be modest who are the enemies of womankind! It is precisely because they want to see them for the rational souls they really are (and make war on the sinful tendencies they have which would contradict this truth), that they desire women to be modest. In fact, it's been my experience that even worldly, neo-pagan western man, when confronted with a modest woman (modest in dress and in manner) will be affected positively - he will most likely regard her better, and treat her with more respect. Women are doing themselves no favours at all by dressing inappropriately, particularly in the long run.

The view from behind as you make those prostrations is at times…for lack of a nicer word… interesting.

Not to hit you over the head with the hammer of tradition too hard, but it is my understanding that this is precisely why the traditional Orthodox practice is for men and women to stand at different sides of the Church...

I do not try to compel others to be what I am. Orthodox churches, here in America, were frequently established by ethnic groups to create a place, where they could practice not only their beliefs, but also as a place to be able socialize amongst like people. In doing this, they lost sight of the fact that the church belongs to ORTHODOX people. It does not belong to just the Russians, just the Greeks or just any other ethnic group. All too frequently ethnic groups view the “incursion” of converts as the invasion of the undesirables. This comes out in unfriendliness, hostility and other forms of “ugliness”. Converts want to change things. Our children will lose their identity. And etc. The question becomes then…is it your ethnicity that is more important or is it your orthodoxy that is more important? One needs not lose the first, to practice the second.

You won't get too many arguments from me here. It's nice to remember were you're from, but you are most certainly correct, the true faith matters more, and infinitely so. It's very unfortunate - understandable to an extent, but unfortunate.

However, where I differ with some (perhaps not you, but others) is that I'm not totally against Orthodoxy being "ethnic", particularly at this stage. The Orthodox way of life is holistic and thus is a living tradition, and comes in a package. Thus, it will ultimatly be the intermeshing of the "evangelizing culture" with the culture it's engaging, organically, which will result in any sort of "Orthodox America" or "Orthodox Canada" (in my case.) This is no different than what happened in the past, when the obviously semitic Apostles engaged the Roman world (the Church to this days still bears deep marks from this cultural semitism), and in turn when this "semitized" Roman Christian culture encountered the Slavs (who bear the cultural marks of both these first Semitic Christians, and their Greco-Roman disciples.)

Not long ago, I was part of a group discussion about a “mistake” the early church fathers made. One not so young --but not old either—person made the statement that the 3rd century church elders made a serious mistake when they strove with such ardor to separate themselves from Judaism. Rather, this person felt, that the better path would have been to maintain the “Judaism” and to incorporate it into the Christianity of the times. An interesting argument and I think not without merit. Consider where the whole Judaic thing would be now if there was no Judaism as we know it ….. hmmmmm …..

I'm curious - was this an Orthodox discussion group? I only ask, since I commonly hear this kind of thing from evangelical Protestants, who in recent times (perhaps in search of some ancient roots, since their own tradition has none) have begun all sorts of strange "Judaizing" practices (like celebrating Old Tesament feasts.)

The problem with the line of reasoning you're putting forward, is that this "distancing" you're speaking of was inescapable, and stands on dogmatic principles. In short, our life, and the basis of the Church's relationship with God is founded upon Christ. The old rites, even the old Law itself, were only shadows prefiguring this truth - no Old Testament Saint was saved by mountains of sacrificed animals, etc., but by Christ Who was a ransom for all (and descended into hades to retrieve those who had gone to sleep in the hope fostered by these shadowy rites.) To indulge "Judaic practices" in the improper way "Judaizing" does, creates a another, secondary means of salvation. This was the dogmatic error of the Judaizers, who to varying degrees (depending on the depth of their Judaizing teaching) really did not grasp the significance of Christ.

Inevitably, someone is bound to bring up that whole idea that God condemned the Jews, Maybe he did, but who is to say that he would not have forgiven them eventually?

Objectively, God has forgiven all; His Son became a ransom for mankind. The work of salvation (on our end) is a subjective one. The condemnation of any man is ultimatly rooted in his own love of sin, and his lack of love of God. The Jews historically have been pointed to by the Saints as a shameful example, since they (better than any other people on the face of the planet) had been given the means to see their salvation. There was no Chinese "Moses" or Celtic "Elijah", nor a Sanskrit "Torah" or Divine Scriptures pointing to the Christ given to the peoples of India, etc. Simply put, they should have known better, and to a great extent to this day, should know better.

Are we gods that we know the mind of GOD?

In a manner of speaking, the saints were/are ("gods" by grace.) They certainly had the mind of Christ.

Maybe He would have done something that would have changed things?

Our poor Saviour - why is He blamed when we fail?

Besides, we as Orthodox are supposed to practice that rule of forgiving one’s enemies, but we somehow seem to forget about that.

This is true, but irrelevent to the subject you've brought up.

What if we had worked harder to forgive the Jews and prayed for them?

I wasn't aware that the Church does not pray for the conversion of sinners?

Maybe God would have heard our prayers?

He has.

Which brings me to a whole other thought… Why is it okay to forgive your enemy but only as long as he is orthodox? Why is a sin against an Orthodox person a sin, but a sin against a non-Orthodox person okay?

Who teaches such an absurdity? Oddly enough, such a way of thinking is in fact very "Judaic".

Why is compassion to an Orthodox person more important than compassion for another human being? … I’ve been running into a lot of this lately. Makes me madder than a bothered hornet…

Well, we do have a special obligation to our brethren. However, in general (both towards the brethren and towards strangers) there is a coldness in men's hearts, including (unfortunately) many Orthodox as well. I know this first hand, since I'm ashamed of just how unfeeling and dead I can be towards the misery of others.

Seraphim