An excerpt from Women Officeholders in the Early Church (Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2006 7:27 pm on the Celtic Anabaptist Ministries Message Board by an unknown guest) Women’s Apostolic Succession How did some of these early women leaders view themselves as preachers and proclaimers of the Gospel? Dorothy Irvin’s analysis of early catacomb frescos and mosaics provides compelling historical evidence that early women leaders saw themselves in apostolic succession to prominent first century women disciples such as Mary the mother of Jesus, Phoebe, Mary of Magdala and others. Theodora, Episcopa Perhaps the most accessible example of female apostolic succession is an ancient mosaic still visible in the Church of St. Praxedis in Rome. This ninth century portrait honors four women leaders who pastored the community, beginning with Mary of Nazareth who was often venerated by early Christians as the first apostolic woman leader. St. Praxedis and St. Pudentiana (on whose ancestral land the Church is thought to have been built) were endangered female leaders of house churches before Christianity was legalized in 313 AD. While these two and Mary have round halos in the mosaic, the fourth woman, Theodora, has a square halo showing that she was alive when the portrait was made. Inscribed above Theodora is the word Episcopa, with the feminine ending, meaning a bishop who is a woman. Just as contemporary churches, cathedral offices and seminaries frequently display photographs of previous pastors, bishops and rectors; the mosaic at St. Praxedis reveals the succession of female pastors and bishops from Mary of Nazareth though Praxedis and Pudentiana to Theodora. Like her predecessor, St. Praxidis 700 years earlier, Theodora wears an episcopal cross attesting to her service as bishop of the titular church of St. Praxedis. In addition to Theodora and Praxedis, Ute Eisen believes: “Other Latin inscriptions from Italy and Dalmatia make it probable that women were active there as bishops in the fifth and sixth centuries. This is supported by the epigraphically attested women presbyters of the fourth to sixth centuries in the West, as well as by literary evidence from a later period that attacks, and thereby confirms, the sacerdotal activity of women. [Eisen p. 208] Sofia, the Deacon. In 1903 bible scholars found a fourth century tombstone on the mount of Olives with a Greek inscription which read: “Here lies the minister and bride of Christ, Sofia the deacon, a second Phoebe. She fell asleep in peace on the 21st of month of March...” The Christian community in Jerusalem understood Sofia’s ministry to be part of a three hundred year old tradition dating back to the Phoebe of Romans 16 which was validated by none other than the apostle Paul who said: “I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church at Cenchreae” Notable is the fact that for both Phoebe and Sofia, the Greek word diaconos is used a masculine ending with the feminine article. Diaconos is the same word Paul used to describe his own ministry. Clearly, the Jerusalem community saw Sofia’s ministry in apostolic succession to that of Phoebe. There is ample evidence of other female deacons who ministered from the first to the sixth centuries in Palestine, Asia Minor, Greece, Macedonia, Rome and France. About Evidence for Women Priests Formerly, archeologists and scholars took references to female priests, deacons and bishops to be honorary titles for the wives of these officeholders, rather than a female title for the office. Recent scholarship rejects this interpretation. In the ancient world, titles were legal identification since no system of family surnames yet existed. If a woman is described by a title such as presbytera (woman priest) it means that she held that office herself. If her husband had the office, the title is attached to his name (not hers) and she is named as his wife without a title. As Dorothy Irvin points out: “The word presbytera is not the word that was used for a woman priest of any Greek or Roman religious cult. Presbyter, a Greek word meaning “elder” was one of the New Testament designations of ministry that became normative, together with deacon and bishop. In the Latin -speaking areas of the early church, a feminine ending was added to form the title of women holding this office.” In English the word was shortened to “prester” and eventually to “priest” [Irvin calendar 2003 (July-Aug)]. Ute Eisen’s careful study of tombstone inscriptions and literary attestations reveals widespread evidence for women priests and presiders (presbytera, presbytides, presbiterissa) who functioned in both the eastern and western churches from the third to the ninth centuries.
This short monograph was written by FutureChurch’s Sr. Christine Schenk. It is an introduction to the work of two scholars: Ute Eisen and Dorothy Irvin.
Eisen's book: Women Officeholders in Early Christianity (Liturgical Press, 2000) is an exhaustive study of the literary and epigraphical evidence for women officeholders from the ancient Church to the Middle Ages. Her shows that women led and served communities Asia Minor, Greece, Spain, Egypt, Sicily, Italy, Palestine and Yugoslavia.
Dorothy Irvin holds a pontifical doctorate in Catholic Theology from the University of Tubingen, Germany with specialization in bible, ancient near eastern studies and archeology. For the last twenty years she has been an active field archeologist. Her calendars: The Archeology of Women's Traditional Ministries in the Church have made recent discoveries more widely accessible to the general public.
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Another related article:POSITION PAPER OF THE LUTHERAN ORTHODOX CHURCH REGARDING THE ORDINATION AND CONSECRATION OF WOMEN TO THE MINISTRY AND EPISCOPATE
