Talk:Ordination of Women

Keeping in mind that this is likely to be a divisive topic, I've moved this section from Ordination to its own page.

I've also removed this paragraph from the text of the article:

The role of women has been limited in other ways also. Despite extensive participation by women in the first century as deacons, apostles, evangelists, and teachers, in the second century the church offically adopted policies that forbade women from preaching and teaching. However, they served as deaconesses from the first to the twelfth century, reading prayers for the sick. The Orthodox service book still contains the service for ordination of women to the diaconate.

There are a number of serious historical issues here that need to be addressed -- but they should be discussed at a different level. I think we want to aim for a descriptive approach, being very sensitive to NPOV. The paragraph above contains assertions, evidently based based on secondary literature. Instead, I think we should begin with the primary sources and then present the various interpretations of these things, citing who is saying what. I think this kind o documentary overview is an important part of what OrthodoxWiki is about. I don't want it to look like OrthodoxWiki is advocating one position over another, but rather is simply documenting the discussions that are taking place. Fr. John