www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology The veiling of women

and usually by men!?! :rolleyes:

I noticed that, too, but can't explain it.

Dear Mark,

We've been through this before in a previous thread.

If the veiled Christian women of Eastern Europe took the custom from the Muslims, how would you explain that the women of the Byzantine Rite Eastern Christian parishes of Southern Italy & Sicily (which were never occupied by the Muslims) also have had exactly the same custom?

The Greco-Albanian (Arberesh) parishes in Southern Italy were formed by those present since the earliest days of Christianity and later supplemented by those Christians refusing to remain in the Balkans under Ottoman domination (arriving in Italy & Sicily between 1450 and 1750).

Hint: You weren't able answer it the first time.

In Christ,
Andrew

Dear Carole,

I thought that was you. Welcome to our BC home. Thanks for the support. What I want to add is that the point I'm trying to make is not that we need a new law mandating that all women or some women wear veils. What I'm really advocating is for us to take a fresh look at ways we can recapture or deepen the sense of the sacred in all we do. I happen to believe that veiling for women who see it as an expression of devotion is of great value to both men and women. It certainly is not the only area we should investigate but it is one.

I believe every Church would do well to have a spiritual retreat maybe twice a year, maybe one for men and one for women that would pray over and discern how the sacred might be increased in our lives including public worship.

Maybe I'll start a thread in which I will list several of, as one poster put it "dead horses", that we ought to discuss. I don't believe for a moment that these issues are dead. If I did I go off and form my own new Church. Maybe I'd call it "The Dead Horse Society".

CDL

I can. We need to be more spiritual and we are asking women to help us. It is certainly our own responsibility but aren't men and women made for each other?

Deacon, I'm beginning to wonder about some things, and they don't make me particularly filled with joy.

Dan L

Thanks for the welcome, Dan. Though I have to admit that at times this forum and the academic and esoteric cant of the forum is often intimidating.

I find the topic to be fascinating from the view point of wondering why it was important enough for St. Paul to address this - yet it seems both the East and the West disdain the practice. To the point that even asking about it makes tempers flair.

At the very least I think showing respect for those women who do feel called to this practice would be in order.

Though it would seem that believing that St. Paul must have had a good reason for the admonition is apparently a "Roman" or "Convert" thing.

Carole,

Thank you. I'm not sure what to make of the resistance of even looking at it. Though I think the resistance is secular in nature, an unexpected tendancy on this forum to be sure. I expect Western Rationalistic arguments from my non-Christian Comparative Religions students. It's surprising when they come from here.

Dan L

I am neither for nor against the practice. It seems to have come and gone and come back again for whatever reason. I think if it were mandated again, as was the case in the RC before Vatican II, it might be widely ignored today. I see women wear veils in the RC church where I play, and nobody objects. They are free to wear them if they choose. At my Byzantine Church, nobody wears them.

What's to explain? There is no reason to assume a single source of the tradition of different peoples - even if they do share other things. Indeed the suggestion that if two peoples share the byzantine rite and certain dress, then the dress is, in a sense, part of the ritual tradition - that would need some explaining.

The same applies to headcoverings of Jewish women. While we derive much from Jewish traditions, there is much left behind - some deliberately so. the wearing of headcoverings by some may be directly and continuously traceable to Jewish/Mediterranean practices. Or not or it might not be. Proving the connection or lack of of it would be tough, either way.

Dan, no one gave any such argument.

You initiated a thread not with a call for women to help men with their spirituality. And not even with the far from obvious assumption that covering the heads of women at prayer will help us. But with a condemnatory conclusion about those who see this situation differently.

Those who see the situation differently responded as one might have expected. Not with secularity but with an admonitions. Against leaping to doctrinaire conclusions; against preoccupation with externals; against overvaluing private judgement; and, perhaps most importantly, against the idea of allowing the changing of one's own behavior to be conditioned by a change in the behavior of other's.

If you hear non-Christian, secularity in this thread, get ears to hear, and listen.

I missed the disrespect for this practice in any post. I am fairly certain that the posters here have all seen women in chiurch with babushkas. I would be shocked if they showed disrespect to any woman for wearing one.

I meant in general - not specifically in this thread but in discussions of this type anywhere.

Of course I don't necessarily consider the response of Medved to have been the height of respect - but apparently I am the only person who felt his responses to me were unacceptably rude.

Carole,

This is one of those times when tempers can easily be a little short .

Many of us are fasting - some more stringently than others .

Actually I think this is probably the first week that all the Catholic and Orthodox members are fasting in some way.

We occasionally go slightly mad - hence the comments about chocolate earlier in the thread [ dark chocolate is permitted - non dairy ] .

I'm surprised actually that more of the fairer sex have not entered the fray here - after all it's the women who do cover in some places.

Me , I don't normally - it depends where I am . I respect tradition - if I am going somewhere new and I can ask first I do . If not - well , I make sure I have a scarf in my bag.

I do however wonder about some of the examples of veils I have seen on the internet sites where head coverings can be found . To say that some are more ornamental than actual coverings is , to my mind , putting it mildly. I know from comments on another Site [ and I think here as well ] that men find a woman constantly fiddling with her scarf , veil or what-have-you is more distracting than a woman whose head is uncovered.

I can't honestly see anyone objecting should you wish to cover .

Anhelyna

djs,

I would suggest that our differences of opinion on many matters won't be easily overcome.

Carole,

I too, thought Medved was unecessarily rude. Which was quite surprising because he usually is quite the gentleman.

Dan L

No doubt. In fact, on many matters likely never to be overcome.

And what do you learn from that?

You don't really want me to answer that do you?

Dan,

I disagree with your generalized statement that men and women were made for each other. I would agree that within marriage one man and one woman were made for each other. But I personally do not see the connection that a veiled woman helps a man be more spiritual. Given the fact that a majority of women in our congregations do not wear veils, you infer by your veiled comments (pun intended) that we are somehow spiritually deficient.

Now to be sure, I do not deny I am spiritually deficient, but that has nothing to do with my bride's lack of a veil. God forbid that I follow Adam's lead and say to the the Just Judge, "the woman you gave me did not wear a veil, and she caused me to sin."

But I apologize for causing you to wonder about some things (me perhaps?), that don't fill you with joy. I ask you to remember this deacon, when Fr Deacon Timothy intones the litany to pray for the "diaconate in Christ."