Fr Alex Swain

Beloved in Christ, 

Today we celebrate the feast of blessed William Reed Huntington (d. 1909). According to Lesser Feasts and Fasts, he helped fight for the revival of female deacons (deaconesses, at the time) in 1871 which was final canonically authorized in 1889. Christian unity was a great theme of this decades of ministry, and his work helped to create the “Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral” which began what is now called the Anglican Communion (the third largest denomination globally after Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, of which the Episcopal Church is a part of). 

Today’s Epistle comes from Romans 16:1-16 where St Paul says, “I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church at Cencheae, so that you may welcome her in the Lord as is fitting for the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you, for she has been a benefactor of many and of myself as well.” 

Despite clear scriptural evidence for female leadership in church, the Roman Catholic and most of the Eastern Orthodox traditions do not ordain women to the role of deacon, let alone priest. 

I recently encountered this blurb on Substack, from the book “Women and Ordination in the Orthodox Church” edited by Gabrielle Thomas and Elena Narinskaya, where renown Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart writes, “Some traditions are old because they are truly valuable, while some are valued only because they are old. The exclusion of women from the priesthood is a practice for which the theological arguments are notoriously weak—to the point of fatuity in many cases—but Orthodoxy’s veneration of the past has usually made it impossible to undertake a serious reconsideration of the issue.” 

It is heartening to know that there is active conversation about the role of women in some of the oldest traditions in the church.  

I am grateful to be a part of a denomination which, although imperfect (as all traditions are on this side of heaven), seeks the full inclusion of all people, as all people are made in the image of God. 

Every person is called to come to know God. 

Every baptized person is called to serve Christ, in all our similarity, and in all our difference. 

I am grateful for the pioneering work of blessed William Reed Huntington, may he pray for us to the Lord our God! 

Yours in Christ, 

—Fr Alex