The Holy Church affirms the equal dignity of men and women as persons created in the image and likeness of God. Equality, in this sense, does not entail interchangeability of vocation, but rather a reverent recognition that men and women alike are endowed with gifts, talents, and responsibilities that are to be exercised in mutual respect and service. Within this theological framework, the Church receives the explicit apostolic directives concerning liturgical order and ecclesial authority as normative for her life.
The Scriptures speak with particular perspicuity on public preaching and the exercise of pastoral authority. Saint Paul wrote that women should “learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent” (1 Timothy 2:11–12). He likewise instructed the Corinthians when he wrote, “For God is a God not of disorder but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints, women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church” (1 Corinthians 14:33–35). The Church receives these apostolic injunctions, not as temporary cultural expedients, but as teachings inscribed into the very order of ecclesial worship and oversight.
From these texts the Church concludes that the priesthood is reserved to men and is not a matter of personal status or worth, but of sacramental representation. The presbyter and the bishop sacramentally image Christ the High Priest and act in persona Christi in relation to His Body, the Church. The all-male presbyterate and episcopate likewise bear continuity with the apostolic college chosen by the Lord. This is not a denial of female sanctity or of women’s charisms; rather, it is a confession that sacramental signs are divinely instituted and carry an iconic logic that the Church lacks authority to modify.
At the same time, the Church does not read Saint Paul as suppressing the sanctified speech of faithful women in every context, nor as denying the reality that women have, in every age, taught, instructed, and borne authoritative witness to the truth of Christ in ways that accord with ecclesial order. The New Testament itself honours women who proclaimed the Resurrection—foremost among them the Holy Myrrh-bearing women and Saint Mary Magdalene, honoured as “apostle to the apostles”* in the sense that she was sent to announce the Lord’s rising. In patristic and Byzantine tradition we honour women whose theological and spiritual teaching has shaped the mind of the Church. Some of these include: Saint Macrina the Younger, whose instruction influenced Saints Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa; Saint Olympias, the deaconess and confidante of Saint John Chrysostom; Saint Kassia, the hymnographer; and Holy Nina, Equal-to-the-Apostles, who evangelised the country of Georgia. These women were not ordained to the priesthood, nor did they preach homiletically in the Eucharistic assembly as presbyters; nevertheless, their service as catechists, hymnographers, spiritual mothers, evangelists, and confessors of the faith is indisputable.
Historically, the Church has also known the order of deaconesses, particularly in the early and Byzantine eras. Their ministry was ordered and blessed, yet distinct from the liturgical presidency of the Eucharist proper to bishops and presbyters. Deaconesses assist with the baptism of women, offer pastoral care to widows and the vulnerable, and exercise charitable and catechetical labours. Where restored in certain contexts, the Church has taken care to articulate this ministry in continuity with tradition, without collapsing the ontological and symbolic distinction that pertains to priestly presidency.
It follows that when Saint Paul requires silence “in the churches,” he speaks primarily of the ordered conduct of the liturgical assembly, in which the proclamation of the Word and the pastoral governance of the flock rest with those ordained to that charge. The apostolic admonition guards against confusion, rivalry of voices, and the intrusion of private judgment into the common worship of God. The Church therefore holds that the public homily in the Divine Liturgy is ordinarily delivered by the bishop or priest. This discipline aims at ecclesial edification, not at the depreciation of women’s gifts.
Beyond the pulpit of the Liturgy, the Church recognises a wide ambit for women’s teaching and service. Women serve as catechists, theologians, scholars, teachers of children and adults, choirmasters, readers in certain local customs where the bishop blesses such service, monastic elders offering spiritual counsel within obedience, missionaries, charitable leaders, and administrators of philanthropic works. They write books, compose hymns, teach in seminaries with episcopal blessing, and exercise influence in ecclesial life through holiness, learning, and pastoral care. None of this contradicts the writings of Saint Paul; rather, it manifests the variety of gifts distributed by the Holy Spirit for the upbuilding of the Body of Christ, exercised in a manner consonant with the Church’s liturgical and sacramental order.
In sum, the Apostolic Church simultaneously 1) affirms the equal dignity of men and women and welcomes the manifold charisms of women as essential to the life and mission of the Church, and 2) maintains, on scriptural and traditional grounds, that the sacramental priesthood and the authoritative preaching that is integral to its office within the Eucharistic assembly are reserved to men. This is not a pragmatic policy but a theological confession rooted in Christological iconography, apostolic precedent, and the Church’s living tradition. Properly understood, this ordered complementarity safeguards peace and unity in worship, while encouraging women to teach, witness, and serve in those many spheres where the Church has always recognised and blessed their indispensable contributions.
May God bless you +
Fr. Charles
* The expression “apostle to the apostles” originates from the patristic interpretation of the Resurrection narratives (especially John 20:17–18). It was first used by early Fathers such as Hippolytus and Augustine, embedded in Byzantine hymnography, and reaffirmed liturgically by the modern Church. It denotes her unique mission as the first bearer of the Resurrection message, sent by Christ Himself to proclaim it to His Apostles.
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