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| Parishioner Dorothy Irvin Is Showcasing St. Praxedis and Those Other Women! |
The Good Old Days tend to get mixed reviews. Now if your talking about 100 to 820 A.D. you’re stirring up controversy, particularly if your talking about who is what in the early Christian Communities. Dr. Dorothy Irvin, theologian, archeologist, and SJA parishioner has spent over 30 years studying and quietly but firmly talking about women as early church leaders. To remind us of their importance and reality, she designed a very classy 2003 calendar that says we women were there and we are still here, in the church that is!
Dorothy Irvin called me to have coffee and to show me galley proofs of her Women's Traditional Ministries in the Church Calendar. In paging through the pictures of women in mosaics and with symbols it was obvious, even to the layman, these were women who held some kind of religious office between 100 and 820 A.D. Dorothy has very cleverly added informational texts to each picture to explain who and what these women did in the early church. So my question to Dorothy was asking what happened, why did the women church leaders disappear?
Coffee with Dorothy Irvin is never about matters shallow. My questions only
strengthen her resolve to set the record straight. We talked for almost two
hours but in a nutshell Dorothy says this is what happened. The earliest
Christians, our spiritual ancestors gathered in homes or what came to be
called 'house churches.' These house churches could only manage gatherings
of eight to maybe twenty. This went on until 313 when Constantine ended the
persecutions and Christians could gather in public places. St. Paul lists in
First Corinthians 9:14 various roles members held in these house churches.
They were apostles, prophets, healers, teachers, administrators, and those
with the gift of tongues. One wonders if we just couldn't get a few of thee
roles back, like prophets and healers. The church gaining its freedom
changed everything including the accepted roles of women in leadership.
The October 14/2002 issue of America Magazine has an article on the
International Theological Commission's study on the role that women
deacons played in the early church. They are trying to say that it was very
different from the male deacons. But deacons at first were table waiters. At
least this article is not saying like others did in 1976 that there was no tradition
of women as leaders. The article says they are studying what women deacons
did in the early church.
The very study admits that they were part of the
community and they had a title or responsibilities. Dorothy smiles as she comments about how we live in a time when a lot of cover-ups are being
challenged. Dorothy's calendar pictures clearly show that women played a key
leadership role in the church. The mosaics even use the word 'priest' and
'bishop' in the stone inscriptions.
For thirty plus years Dorothy Irvin has studied and lectured and written about the meaning of those ancient mosaics of Christian women. When I asked her why she decided to put together a calendar, she said "To keep the truth in front of us". Dorothy is a very loyal Catholic who knows better than most the human frailty of the Church, but she firmly believes that the Church would be better served if it rebalanced its power and authority more along the original lines of the early church. Like many, she does not think that a one-gender leadership is balanced. Women are more into relationship and less into power so they have been more willing in times past to play a secondary role. Not so much now.
When I asked her about the origin of priests in the church, her answer was complex and thought provoking. The early church did not follow the model of the pagan or Jewish religions that had priests. In these religions, their role was one of being in charge of the animal sacrifices. The Christians spoke of deacons, elders and overseers or bishops as part of the first leadership format. This raises questions of women’s roles. Were they healers as they later became? We know women were prophetesses and we know they were deacons. The calendar Dorothy Irvin designed is a wonderful tribute to that era and yet it is very contemporary in the way it raises the question and invites us to think of today’s church and tomorrow's church.
| If you are interested in purchasing a calendar, you can contact Dorothy Irvin at dirish854@CS.com or you may secure one at the St. Joan of Arc Parish Book Store located in the Parish Center. |
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