During our week with Project Mexico, fasting came up a number of times. It started with the effort to find food in the airport which did not contain meat, inspiring a few conversations about the idea of ‘travel mercies,’ the leniency granted to travelers who may not be able to find options which fulfill the fast. The conversation continued at the Orphanage. Due to government regulations imposed by the Mexican government, a certain amount of meat must be served each week at Orphanages. Our host made it clear to us that the primarily Catholic staff of the orphanage would do their best to make Lenten meals for us, but may at times forget, and for us to be gracious. He further pointed out that our presence in building a house was itself a fast, a ‘work of mercy.’

The question of the participation of women in the liturgical and priestly ministry of the Orthodox Church is a relatively new question, one which has come to it from the “outside.” Yet, for the last 30 years, the question has been seriously considered by Orthodox theologians who have made it our own. This is true of theologians who both oppose and support a greater participation of women in liturgical service.

…Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner. . . . So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken." (Gen. 2:18, 21-23 NRSV)

The task of investigating the two creation accounts in Genesis 1 and 2 is not an easy one, for many reasons. Both scholarly and Patristic sources have burnt the midnight oil and spilt much ink over these mere fifty-six verses. It is obvious why this small portion of Scripture has attracted so much attention. It is a story of beginnings, a portrait of creation prior to the destructive effects of sin.

Frank Schaeffer, a former evangelical Protestant who recently became Orthodox, in the December 1993 issue of the Orthodox Observer accused those who do not believe Christ's gender to have relevance of being "iconoclastic," that is, of refusing to recognize the reality of His male sexuality. He said that

[b]y ordaining women, "liberal" Protestants are in effect saying, "Christ did not come in the flesh, his maleness does not matter, he is a mere symbol of something larger."

But to the Orthodox Christian, Christ's maleness does matter, just as Mary's femaleness matters.¹