On Women's Ordination to the Presbytery (Part I)

Introduction

In this post, we want to stand with the recent call to the ACNA to not ordain women to the presbytery. However, that call deserves increased and rigorous conversation about what the data actually says. This data deserves to be situated in a wider theological framework regarding sex and gender; in due time, we will get to that task. However, I wanted to address the claim, made by some writers, that the early church ordained female bishops and priests and only put a moratorium on that in the medieval era. I find that claim quite absurd.

We will not address the evidence for ordination to the diaconate, as most of us agree that this evidence is far more compelling and controverted. We at The Catholic Reformation do not have a unified stance accordingly. However, we are united in our affirmation that the presbytery ought to be male (and by extension, the episcopate).

Much of this post will address arguments put forth by Alison Morgan from her book The Hidden History of Women’s Ordination and others.

Presbytera and Episcopae

Many arguments aim to show that there are female priests from the use of the word presbytera. The common retort to the argument that presbytera denoted “priest’s wives” is that there are some usages of the term which don’t seem to link it the figure in question with a priest. As a preliminary note, it’s important to remember that the term also could denote the wives of male deacons.[1] For instance, consider the 567AD council of Tours, canon 19:

“If a presbyter has been found with his presbyteress (presbiteria) or a deacon with his deaconess (diaconissa) or a subdeacon with his subdeaconess (subdiaconissa), let him be excommunicate (excommunis) for an entire year, deposed from every clerical office and put among the laity.”

Here, it’s clear that the terms refer to the wives of these clerics (with the unfortunate requirement that clerics were expected to refrain from sex even from their spouses). Other examples of this include canon 21 at the 521AD Synod of Auxerre:

“It is not allowed to any presbyter after having accepted the blessing of ordination to sleep in the same bed with his presbytera (presbytera) nor to unite in carnal sin (in peccato carnali miscere); nor may a deacon or subdeacon.”

The 743AD Synod of Rome, canon 5:

“No one should presume to join himself physically to an abominable consort, like a presbyteress (presbyteram), deaconess (diaconam), nun (nonnam) or female monk (monacham) or a spiritual matron (spiritualem commatrem). Anyone who commits an act of this kind, should know he is bound by the fetters of anathema (anathematis vinculo) and condemned by the judgment of God and excluded from the sacred body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ”

But Madigan, quoted previously, goes on to list examples where we can’t simply affirm that such figures are wives of clerics. He gives numerous examples where such figures are condemned by the fathers, showing that presbyterial activity went on amongst some women. Thus, Cyprian in Letter 75:

“There rose up suddenly then a certain woman who, in a state of ecstasy, presented herself as a prophet (prophētēn) and acted as if filled with the Holy Spirit . . . But that woman, who previously through the illusions and treacheries of the Demon in order to deceive the faithful . . . had also often dared this . . . to sanctify the bread and to pretend to confect the eucharist and make the sacrifice to the Lord . . . and she also baptized many, usurping the usual and legitimate mode of questioning, so that nothing might seem to deviate from ecclesiastical rule.”

What this shows, per Madigan, is that certain Christian communities included women who acted in presbyterial roles. But importantly, this passage does not say that she was a presbyter, but rather “pretended to confect the Eucharist”. On the contrary, it shows that such things were condemned by the fathers as aberrations from what the apostles taught.

Some point to Pope Gelasius as evidence that women were ordained presbyters. Gelasius writes,

“With impatience we have heard that divine things have undergone such contempt that women are encouraged to serve at the sacred altars, and that all tasks entrusted to the service of men are performed by a sex for which these [tasks] are not appropriate! And of all these obnoxious trangressions which we reprimand singly, all the criminal guilt falls on those priests who either commit them personally, or who by not making the culprits known show that they agree with these wicked excesses – if we may even call by the name ‘priests’ those men who are prepared to so degrade the religious office entrusted to them that, sinking down to perverse and profane pursuits without any respect for Christian regulations, they run headlong into a deadly abyss.(c) And when it is written that ‘Whoever scorns small things will gradually come to a fall’ (Ecclesiasticus 19,1), what should we think about those people who borne down by the immense and multiplicitous burden of their depravities, have caused an enormous downfall by their various impulsive actions which can be seen not only to lead themselves to perdition, but inflict a mortal plague on all churches if they are not healed?(d) And let those people have no doubt, not only whoever has dared to do these things but also those who, in spite of knowing about it, kept silence, that they lie under the loss of their own honour if they do not hasten, as fast as they can, to heal the lethal wounds with adequate medication.”

But in this passage, Gelasius does not say that women were priests, but were rather doing priestly things. In fact, this is consonant with what can happen today in certain dioceses in the ACNA. Certain dioceses ordain women as deacons but also allow them to preach; in our opinion, this should not be. It is this sort of thing, then, that Gelasius seems to be condemning. Mutatis mutandis, this applies to other early church condemnations of women “serving at the altars” or even offering up the Eucharist. Such affirmations do not show that they functioned as priests, as a priest may still have been the one to confect it; that evidence is underdetermined. Madigan argues that this condemnation comes in the context of the Priscillian heresy, where “greater leadership roles” for women were promoted.[2] But these roles seem to have been leading in prayer circles and such; there is no mention of female ordination as priests.

The observations above help respond to Morgan’s arguments drawn from inscriptions speaking of “presbytera” and “episcopa”. Many times, these were words for priests’ wives or bishops’ wives, or were honorifics that could even be applied to wives of deacons. We can easily think through how such honorifics may have been liberally applied.

Now where Morgan does have a valid and interesting point for further consideration is in pointing out that the concept of “ordination” as a sacramental order did develop through time. It was not unambiguously clear that male deacons, for instance, was a “sacramental order” whereas the female diaconate was not. At the council of Nicea, there is evidence for this position, as male deacons alone received the laying on of hands and female deaconesses did not. However, as Morgan does highlight, this was not true across the board. Hence, there is room, we think, for further discussion on the point of the female diaconate and its nature.

Now, strikingly (and frankly irresponsibly), Fr. Jack Franicevich argues that Peter Abelard wrote to Heloise about the “sudden” restriction of the priesthood to men alone.[3] This is a ridiculous claim. He cites a 2008 paper by Gary Macy in support. However, if you actually read the paper, the “abbess” was not argued to be a female priest, but a deaconess.[4] Now, granted, this seems to have been viewed as a holy order by Peter Abelard. But an abbess was decidedly not a priest. As Macy writes,

“Of course, if abbesses were accepted as the successors of deaconesses, an identification of which the canonists were very well aware,53 then it could be argued that the Church had not, in fact, ceased ordaining deaconesses since the Church continued to ordain abbesses who, according to Abelard, were deaconesses.”[5]

One wonders if Fr. Jack actually read the paper, or simply latched onto an academic paper that could potentially support his point. I hope it’s the former.

Alison Morgan cites other examples of female bishops. For instance, she cites St. Brigid of Ireland, given that “episcopa” was used of her. Some argue that this means she was a female bishop.[6] But in fact, she functioned as a superior general of a monastery for women. We must remember in these conversations the use of analogical language in the church. A superior general in a religious order for women was (and still is) called “Reverend Mother” or even “Right Reverend Mother”; the point was not that she held the office of the episcopate, but rather that she functioned analogically to the episcopate in the domain of a religious order for women. This certainly means she was a female leader in the church, but this, once again, is distinct from the relevant question at hand. Further, while she may even have suggested the one who would become the Bishop of her dioceses, this is analogous to how congregants and leaders (or deacons and deaconesses) may put someone forward for ordination.

Conclusion

In short then, presbytera and episcopa could refer to priests’ wives, bishops’ wives, and even male deacons’ wives. Analogical language could also be employed, insofar as a woman might lead a religious order of women, functioning as a theological teacher and, indeed, a theologian in her own right who wrote theology for the good of the church (and thus, restricting the presbytery and episcopate to males in no way entails restricting women from being theologians, teachers, and scholars in a fitting office. And lest someone says “well these men by fitting office just mean ‘the home’” (although the word “just” is…telling…this is a high calling in itself), we mean that women could function as theologians and teachers while not being priests and bishops and thus preaching the Word as the authoritative expositor or consecrating the sacrament.

Fr. Jack’s claim, as we’ve seen, is grossly irresponsible, and the above cited scholars—while sharing insights we need to pay attention to as we converse in evaluating the question of female deacons—mislead us in thinking that the ordination of women to the priesthood was ever normal or normative. Where women took on priestly functions, there was condemnation rooted in the recognition that men and women in Christ retain their masculinity and femininity, and thus distinctively minister out of the abundant riches diversely yet complementarily present in the sexes.

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[1] Kevin J. Madigan, “The Meaning of Presbytera in Byzantine and Early Medieval Christianity,” in Patterns of Women’s Leadership in Early Christianity, ed. Joan E. Taylor and Ilaria L. E. Ramelli (Oxford University Press, 2021), 0, https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198867067.003.0014.

[2] Madigan, 271.

[3]

Women's Ordination in the ACNA

[4] Gary Macy, “Heloise, Abelard and the Ordination of Abbesses,” The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 57, no. 1 (January 2006): 16–32, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022046905006160.

[5] Macy, 26. Now of course, Macy does argue that a female deaconess was a sacramental order, and he convincingly, to my lights, argues that Peter Abelard thought this. But once again, this is simply not an arguing for a female priesthood from history.

[6] Maeve Callan, ed., “‘The Safest City of Refuge’: Brigid the Bishop,” in Sacred Sisters: Gender, Sanctity, and Power in Medieval Ireland (Amsterdam University Press, 2019), 85–112, https://doi.org/10.1017/9789048542994.005.