P. Kalaitzidis, N. Ntontos (eds.), Gender and Religion. The Position of Woman in the Church, Academy for Theological Studies, Indiktos Publ. Athens, 2004.

         The editor of this volume, Pantelis Kalaitzidis, in his introductory text, sets in a critical way the theological positions of the modern Orthodox problematic on the issue of woman’s place in the Church. Marios Begzos analyses the issue of “Gender and Religion” from the scope of the Philosophy of Religion, while Nikos Dodos discusses aspects of gender in various philosophical and socioanthropological trends and comments on the eschatological approach of gender as a new and liberating “construction” of inter-gender relations.

From the scope of an ecclesiastical anthropology besides, according to Konstantinos Agoras, the sexist way of life can be transcended in the Eucharistic context of personal relations. A patristic study by Georgios Skaltsas examines the views of theologians of the first Christian centuries about the non-gender condition of God and human sexuality and concludes in a variable morality away from abstract generalizations and authoritarianisms. The questions about woman’s position in the Orthodox Church, the ordination of women and the contribution of the Orthodox Church to facing the problems of women in Greek society are dealt with in the text by Ioannis Petrou. Evanthia Adamtziloglou realizes a historical, Christological and Trinitarian consideration of the issue of women and the creation in His image, while Evangelos Theodorou examines historically the institution of the Deaconesses.

The text by Katerina Karkala-Zorba is an introduction to feminist theology, expressing the view that eastern Orthodoxy can inseminate it in its current crisis, while Stavros Yagazoglou considers that feminist theology and the ordination of women in the western Church are the results of a secularised ecclesiology. Konstantinos Yokarinis conducts an extensive historical and theological analysis of the issue of women’s ordination, highlighting its anthropological and Christological dimensions. Eleni-Kasselouri Hatzivasiliadi presents the issue of woman in the Orthodox Tradition and Worship in the frame of the modern theological research on the “gender” factor, while Dimitris Passakos studies the concepts of purity and impurity in Judaism, the New Testament and the life of the Church. Fr. Antonios Kalligeris discusses the issue of woman’s position in the Church from a pastoral point of view, while Sister Theodekti discusses the equality of the sexes from the point of view of the female Orthodox monasticism.

This collective volume concludes with texts from a debate on the issue of “Religions and Woman. The Problem of Violence and Fundamentalism”, where Anna Karamanou represented the political side, Teny Pirri-Simonian made a Christian-ecumenical contribution, Marilyn Pizante took part on behalf of the Jewish tradition, Méhrézia Labidi-Maiza offered an Islamic view and Pigi Kazlari an Orthodox perspective.