ABSTRACT
Orthodox women share the same human experiences as all other women in society across cultures, traditions, religion, class and race. Notwithstanding these experiences, and despite the rapid changes in secular societies at large, there was no nationwide or universal movement of Orthodox women during the decades following the 1947 study ‘Life and Work of Women in the Church’. Women in the Protestant, Anglican, Reform and Roman Catholic traditions were challenging their church hierarchies and structures by working on programmes for reforms ranging from the non-segregation of congregations to the ordination of women to the priesthood and the bishopric. Feminist church historians and theologians developed a paradigm for historical and academic research and scholarship based upon a ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’ using new theories and concepts of inquiry and examination. Many possibilities were opened for Orthodox women to also seek equal lay participation in a clergy-dominated Church; though lacking supportive mentors they had already gained some aspects of equality in secular society. Catalysts for various action groups came from the WCC Sixth Assembly in Vancouver in 1983; the launch of the Ecumenical Decade of Churches in Solidarity with Women (EDCSW) and the Rhodes Consultation both held in 1988, and the specific issues recommended for discussion from the Cairo Steering Committee meeting for the Orthodox Women’s Consultation in Crete in 1990. If Orthodox women were not inspired to action by the ecumenical debates on social justice issues that shifted from local and national to global perspectives on discrimination and the exclusion of women in Church and society, could it be that Orthodox women conspired, albeit subconsciously, with their conservative clergy and theologians to enforce the existing isolation from other Christian women – especially feminist Christian women?
