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5. “Orthodox Domesticity”: Creating a Social Role for Women
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5 “Orthodox Domesticity”: Creating a Social Role for Women William G. Wagner Petitioning the Council of the Russian Orthodox Church that met between August 1917 and September 1918 for the restoration of the office of deaconess, Liudmila Gerasimova, a journalist and self-professed specialist in agriculture, argued that “the Church, the state, and humanity” would benefit in important ways from this action. As deaconesses, she asserted, “women will engage in culturally enlightening activity in a religious spirit . . ., especially in such areas as agriculture, medicine, crafts, and useful trades for the countryside, . . . proclaim the Christian truths of the knowledge of God and undertake the moral and spiritual enlightenment of the people, . . . engage in economic-managerial activity in the Church,the organization of the parish,charitable activity [and] the declaration of the joyful news of the Gospels to adults, youth, and children and its proclamation to female Christian lay students . . . [and] participate in the liturgy and the management of the church economy.” To achieve these objectives, Gerasimova envisaged the formation of “settlements of female intelligentsia” that would “find their best use in the cultural-educational religious mission of the village deaconess.”1 Gerasimova’s conception of the office of deaconess therefore corresponded with the proposals advanced in the early twentieth century by such women as Abbess Ekaterina of the Holy Mother of God Convent in Lesna, Sedlets Province, and the Grand Duchess Elizaveta Feodorovna, founder and Mother Superior of the Martha and Mary Cloister in Moscow, who advocated an active social role for women through the creation of autonomous communities of deaconesses dedicated to missionary work and service to the poor and needy.2 A majority of the delegates at the Council,an exclusively male body,agreed that the Church and society had much to gain from such a widening of the social activity of women. Proposing to broaden the role of women in the Church, for example,theCommitteeonChurchDisciplinedeclaredthat“atthepresenttime 119 120 William G.Wagner the position of women in general has changed, and education and all forms of labor and social activity have become accessible to them. Women, moreover, much more than men, have preserved a true religiosity and an ardent devotion to the Church.” Hence “the expansion of the activity of Christian women in all educational,charitable,andevenmissionaryorganizations,sanctifiedmoreover by the experience of the ages, will only benefit the affairs of the Church and enrich its complement of actors by the influx of new creative forces,so necessary for the Church at the present time.”3 Responding to the pleas of advocates such asGerasimova,AbbessEkaterina,andGrandDuchessElizavetaFeodorovna,the committee also supported restoration of the office of deaconess, asserting that “the position of the Church in the period through which we are living, a period that in many ways recalls the first centuries of Christianity, awakens memories of the useful service of deaconesses to the early Church and summons Russian women believers to the special service of their Church through the office of deaconess .”4 Yet, in redefining the role of women in the Church, the committee was careful to ensure that its proposals did not challenge male clerical authority and remained consistent with what its members believed were the particular moral and psychological qualities and the natural and divine calling of women.Hence, while generally granted equality in parish and diocesan governance, women were considered too delicate to be included in certain diocesan bodies; although women were to be permitted to serve as sextons (psalomshchiki), those doing so would not be considered members of the clergy; and deaconesses would not enjoy the autonomy envisaged by Abbess Ekaterina and Grand Duchess Elizaveta Feodorovna but would perform a more modest role under the guidance and authority of parish clergy.5 Through its actions the Council therefore attempted to accommodate, but also to contain and direct, the aspirations and religious energy of women. The actions of the Church Council regarding women represented the culmination of a debate over the nature and role of women that had been taking place within the Orthodox Church, and between representatives of the Church and lay society, since the 1860s. As occurred in other areas of Church life and thought during these decades, the ideal of womanhood conveyed in Orthodox writings and the roles considered appropriate for women were contested and in flux, destabilizing structures of authority and providing women with alternative images that could be used to interpret, fashion, and give meaning to their lives. Tracing the development of the images of womanhood articulated by Orthodox writers in...