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I have been recently reading a book by one of the greatest Orthodox theologians of this century, a Russian emigrant working in France – Paul Evdokimov, whose life and works are quite well-known also in the Western Christian world. The book I mentioned was intriguingly titled Women and the salvation of the world and is an essay about femininity in the salvation economy and the role of women in the church. The author wanted to express his opinion in the debate about women priesthood, the nature of women, their role and calling, which in his times began to be taken seriously also by people from the church circles. He constructs his argumentation in opposition to the tight doctrinalism of certain groups , which tend to perceive women almost as an object, always subjected to men, according to their de-spiritualised interpretation of the Tradition on the one hand, and the existentialists’ claims, represented then most firmly by Simone de Beauvoir on the other. The latter postulated negation of ideas which he thought of as fundamentally important for the Christian doctrine, i.e. of nature, essence and certain ontological features defining our humanity; those who share her convictions claim that human beings can define their existence, their whole quality, in the limited, empirical world. In this particular problem of women’s identity and calling Evdokimov’s judgment balances between a primitive conclusion of women’s inferiority to men, their naturally defined predisposition to servitude and submission, and the belief that one can freely and boundlessly construct their identity from the masculine and feminine aspects present in culture, compiling them and becoming a product of ones own work. To express his opinion accurately he refers to those elements of Eastern theology that describe the relation between man and God, his origins, nature and finally the aim that he is called to fulfill according to Gods will. For Evdokimov and the patristic tradition that inspired him, what defines and distinguishes man and also gives an aim to his existence is contained in the image of God after which he was created. Man was created after the image and likeness of God – likeness is usually explained as a state to which we are called and which we can achieve thanks to the miracle of Incarnation, through which God has entered our realm to make theosis (deification) possible. This is how man was permitted to participate in God and simultaneously fulfill his humanity – which becomes truly after the image of God when the cosmic recapitulation happens and when all the imperfections caused by sin and sealed by death vanish. The Eastern tradition sees here the fullest testimony of God’s love for humankind, love that finds it’s conclusion in God’s union with man, one so close that He shares human body and fate, and enters the world. Some say that the Incarnation would happen even if sin had not; it is therefore something more than merely God’s reaction to the corruption of the world: namely an act of the divine Eros that desires a complete union with man. Christ is hence the alpha and omega , the beginning and the end; he is referred to as the prototype after which humans were created – the full human, perfect human. Therefore Christ is neither a man, nor a woman, which the Fathers emphasized – He possesses human nature in it’s every aspect; he depicts the state prior to the fall as well as anticipates the final transformation of mankind.
The logical consequence of this interpretation, whose meaning, based upon God’s love, touches on anthropology and christology, is the claim that every human being participates in one nature, in the Image of God, through Christ. Evdokimov follows the claim of St. Gregory of Nazjanzus that Christianity consists in trying to shape oneself after the nature of God, in creating a kind of a reflection of the Holy Trinity – multitude of human hypostasis participating in one human nature. Because of all this, it is impossible to claim, Evdokimov argues, that women are in any way inferior to man – if they share the same nature and are called to fulfill it through and like Christ. According to him, one can’t also agree with existentialism, which, by negating the transcendental, negates the Christian vision of man – his calling to define his I in relation to God’s You .
I can agree with Evdokimov about most of the above; I have also to admit that the way he summarizes and creatively develops the Eastern anthropology (although this tradition has never really established a canon for it) perfectly shows its spirit and authentic message. I suppose, however, that, drawing conclusions based on this vision of man, one can go further and more consistently not only toward accepting women as priests, but even changing the traditional attitude toward homosexual relationships. Evdokimov’s conclusions ended where he had begun his reasoning: in arguing that women are not called to serve as priests, even though his argumentation naturally differs from the one used by most proponents of this view and is a lot more sophisticated. I’m under the impression that he didn’t fully acknowledge the meaning of what both he and the church Fathers before him had firmly stated – the call for man to become fulfilled – to become a pleroma; to be in communion with God through Christ and to be after his image like Christ. If there is just one human nature – and Christ certainly did prove that to be true – and if we all posses this nature, than both men and women follow the path from alpha to omega of humanity and there can’t be such a thing that men can develop, do or become while women can’t, and the other way round. Some time ago I came across an opinion of a Polish archbishop, expressed in a sermon he preached during a period of intensified debate on women priesthood in Poland, that a woman is fundamentally unable to establish this mystical relation with Christ that characterises a priest . Fundamentally unable? If so, a woman does not come from the same beginning and doesn’t struggle to achieve the same end. To sustain such a statement one would have to claim that there is no single nature, but that there are two separate – a masculine and a feminine one – or that one did once split in two. This, however, leads to a contradiction – if the presence of Christ, the Eucharist and the liturgy, are all about actualizing, about experiencing eternity, about entering kairos from the historical time, then the theosis of man is at least being anticipated. Hence, because of the fullness of Christ, every division is defeated. The difficulty present in dividing human beings into men and women based on pointing at ontologically different substances as their origins is most clearly visible in the Eucharistic context.
I would also like to speak briefly about one more thing. Evdokimov claims that the hypostasis – the broadest dimension of a person – is always pointed at something in a relation. We can transcend ourselves only in relation to an other: God, whom we can approach in a community, the Church, and love for a fellow human being. It reveals the deepest sense of the commandment be fertile , whose consequence, which he emphasizes, is the eruption of new creation, the gushing spring of holiness . It consists in mutual elevation toward the One Who Is , a way to Christ through devotion and love. Therefore it can be said, regarding masculinity and femininity, that if we perceive human nature, the Image blurred by sin, as a scattered puzzle, cooperation in a relationship doesn’t mean connecting two completely different parts, both of which come from one partner – it is rather a cooperation in working on one and the same material, possessed by them both in the same way. In my opinion the question whether this function can be fulfilled only by a relationship between a man and a woman is indeed worth asking.
