Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America, Set

AN ORTHODOX PERSPECTIVE ON FEMINIST THEOLOGY

AN ORTHODOX PERSPECTIVE ON FEMINIST THEOLOGY l 523 told to wait until the “more important” issues are resolved . The strength and viability of the Armenian Church— which in 2001 proudly celebrated its 1,700-year anniversary —has been its ability to adjust to change while retaining its core principles. That flexibility in nonessential areas is being tested increasingly. The situation of Armenian American women has evolved in past decades . A recent study by the Eastern Diocese provided comparative statistics about women in the Armenian Church between the years 1978 and 2002; the study indicates that the number under the age of forty who work outside the home doubled in that period (from 40 percent in 1978 to 80 percent of the total in 2002); those enrolled in the Women’s Guild fell from 50 to 20 percent of the total; and college graduates increased from 40 to 80 percent. “Thirty or forty years ago women came and cooked and held a bazaar,” Father Untzag Nalbandian observed in presenting the statistics at a leadership workshop of the Women’s Guild. “But now women are educated and raising children and don’t have time to do these things.” The clergyman’s list of the ways today’s women can serve the church, however, appears no more than a sanction of the status quo: In addition to education , he mentioned sponsoring Sunday coffee hour and making mahs (communion bread), helping at social events or joining the choir, conducting Bible study, serving on the parish council, or organizing ecumenical/interfaith activities (Reporter, March 9, 2002, 11–12). The impetus in the late 1980s toward ordaining women appears to have abated, and many women have made the difficult decision to leave the Armenian Church. Most remain, however, and serve the church in various long-accepted capacities. Clearly women have the power to effect major change in the church, particularly affecting the role of women, if they determine to do so. It remains to be seen if they will accept the challenge placed before them: Marys and Marthas of the Armenian Church: Don’t be timid. Don’t be afraid. Take the bold initiatives that are necessary if we expect our church to survive. (Papazian) SOURCES: General information can be found in Christopher Hagop Zakian, ed., The Torch Was Passed: The Centennial History of the Armenian Church of America (1998), and Vigen Guroian, Faith, Church, Mission: Essays for Renewal in the Armenian Church (1995). On women, see Abel Oghlukian, The Deaconess in the Armenian Church (1994); M. Christin Arat, “The Deaconess in the Armenian Church,” in Voices of Armenian Women, ed. Barbara J. Merguerian and Joy RenjilianBurgy (2000), 86–118; Louise Kalemkerian, “The Role of Women in the Armenian Church and Ordination to the Diaconate ” (1986); and Side by Side, vol. 1 (1986–1987) and vol. 2 (1991). A useful collection of documents and statements is in the Armenian International Women’s Association publication Invisible No More? An Expanding Role for Armenian Women in the Church (1996). The evolution of the community is described by Anny Bakalian, Armenian-Americans: From Being to Feeling Armenian (1993). Relevant articles can be found in the periodicals The Armenian Church (Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America, New York) and Outreach (Eastern Prelacy of the Armenian Church of America, New York), among them Iris Papazian, “Mary, Martha, and Men in the Armenian Church (Outreach, 1984), and Very Rev. Aram Keshishian, “The Role of Women in the Armenian Church and Society” (Outreach, 1995). The English-language Armenian press is also useful in this regard (especially the Armenian Mirror-Spectator, Armenian Reporter, and Armenian Weekly). AN ORTHODOX PERSPECTIVE ON FEMINIST THEOLOGY Valerie A. Karras IN A RADIO address delivered on October 1, 1939, Winston Churchill described Russia as “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” For the average mystified Westerner, that famous phrase may equally well describe Russia’s predominant religion, Eastern Orthodox Christianity. While Orthodoxy is the secondlargest Christian communion in the world, with somewhere from 215 million to as many as 300 million faithful, it is a distinctly minority faith in western Europe and North America. In the United States, for example, only about 2 percent of the population is Orthodox. Moreover, despite increasing numbers of nonethnic converts in the West, Orthodoxy is usually associated with ethnic groups whose roots lie in eastern Europe and the Middle East. Most of the Orthodox churches are, in fact, the “original,” continuously existing churches of the Christian East...