I assume your question was not rhetorical: Hair grows on the faces of most men, although there are certain races where facial hair is much more scarce. There are a few reasons I can think of for all men to wear beards, but with priests there’s the iconic role. Man is naturally bearded, Christ was bearded, it’s also a masculine trait that is characteristic of fatherhood. If further distinguishes the genders in a world where androgyny is the contemporary fad.

That said, being a layman I only grow a beard from time to time, like you.

All the best and a joyful Maslenitsa,
Scott

Thank you for the assurance of warm brotherly expressions. I never doubted their presence in our exchange of thoughts. And just to ease the shock of shorn clergy, let me say that I usually sprout the beard during fasting seasons. So the razor takes a break soon. Oh yes, please allow me one more thought – even further afar from the 30 Converts – do you think that all men should go unshaven? We are all “priests” and called to holiness thanks to our Baptism. If that’s the case then Gillette should pull out of Orthodox countries.

A joyous and fulfilling Meatfare Lord’s Day to you and all.

Fr. Francis

Forgive me if I’ve been too cold to you. My parish uses modern English too. Don’t have a problem with it at all. I do like bearded clergy though, won’t elaborate on why, but it’s not the end of the world if a priest shaves.

Your brother in Christ,
Scott

Yes, I’m a real backslider. and I even pray without using archaic Elizabethan English. I suppose now we’ll hear cries of ANATHEMA! Well, man looks on the outside, but God looks into the heart – and even understands modern English! So maybe he can welcome more than one into the fold at the same time.

From Glory to Glory advancing….

Fr. Francis – shorn but not lost!

Sorry to hear that you shave.

Amen.

And which Apostles, pray tell, were women?

St Photini, Great Martyr and Equal-to-the-Apostles. St. Mary of Egypt was certainly not praying with her head covered.

So I say again:

Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of extortion and intemperance. Blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup in order that its outside may come to be clean. (Matt 23: 25-26)

I will assume the best of you, I’ll assume that you are an Orthodox and I’ll pray for you.

I will end the discussion since you could not do that.

It appears to me that this thread has moved quite a distance away from the initial topic of the 30 Episcopalians received into the Church. And if this conversation between Scott & Eliot continues in the direction it’s going, they may be having second thoughts. Wouldn’t it be more beneficial to return to the topic, or just say – “to the ages of ages. AMEN!”

Fr. Francis

And so, a light-minded youth ceases to heed the commandments and admonitions of the Holy Church. He ceases to study the Word of God and the teachings of the Holy Fathers, and listens intently to the sophistries of those who are falsely called teachers, and in these pursuits he kills the best hours of his life. He goes to church less frequently or stands there inattentively, distracted. He does not find the opportunity to devote himself to piety and to exercise himself in the virtues, because he spends so much time attending shows, public entertainments, etc. In a word, with each day he gives himself up more and more to the world, and, finally, he goes off to “a far country.” – St. John Maximovitch, A Word to the Youth

What do you think this Russian Orthodox hierarch, whom you refer to above, would have said about women covering their heads?

True, maybe even the Christian tradition of women covering their heads.

“You seem to place it above Christianity (in a way).”

No, not in any way.

“Does not say somewhere that the Apostles would dress according to the custom of the region when they went to teach all nations?”

And which Apostles, pray tell, were women?

“I do not have anything against ‘head covering’. I do not like it to be imposed because it is harmful for the church.”

Yes, you do have something against it. And if it were harmful the Church would not have had a policy of headcovering for women in place from its earliest days.

“All the denominations that are out there are focusing on different passages of the Scriptures and interpreting them without seeing the connection with similar paragraphs.”

Which is why the Church reserves the right to interpret Scripture to itself. The same Church that called women to cover their heads for over 1900 years.

There is nothing “strict” about women covering their heads or not dressing suggestively.

“Woman and man are to go to church decently attired, with natural step, embracing silence. . .. Let the woman observe this, further: Let her be entirely covered, unless she happens to be at home. For that style of dress is serious and protects from being gazed at. And she will never fall, who puts before her eyes modesty and her veil. Nor will she invite another to fall into sin by uncovering her face. For this is the wish of the Word, since it is becoming for her to pray veiled. Clement of Alexandria (circa 195 AD), 2.290.”

In his twenty-sixth Homily on I Corinthians (Patrologia Graeca, Vol. LXI, Cols. 219-220), St. John Chrysostomos, citing St. Paul’s declaration, “[I]f a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering” (I Corinthians 11:15), pointedly notes that this understanding is “not unknown even to Barbarians.” He further observes that “it is a shame for a woman to have cut hair or a shaved head.” With regard to controversy arising from St. Paul’s prescription that woman cover their heads in Church, he writes: “‘And if…[her hair]…be given her for a covering,’ say you, ‘wherefore need she add another covering?’ That not only nature, but also her own will may take part in her acknowledgment of subjection.” In short, the Divine Chrysostomos, one of the greatest of the Church Fathers, supports St. Paul’s desire that a Christian woman should not cut and shave her hair, while pointing out that the obedience of covering her head in prayer is an act of subjection to God and the Church. He further warns that to ignore these things is to “subvert the very laws of nature” and demonstrates a spirit of “most insolent rashness.” – from Orthodoxinfo

On these subjects the canonical witness of the Church is also not silent. The Ninety-Sixth Canon of the Synod in Trullo [“Penthekte”] reads: “Those who are by baptism clothed in Christ have professed that they will imitate His way of life in the flesh. Those, therefore, who style and trim the hairs of their head, to the ruin of onlookers, with inventive intertwinings, and thereby provide enticement for unstable souls, we paternally proffer an appropriate penance, so as to cure them, instructing and teaching them to live prudently, setting aside the deceit and vanity of materialism, that they might ever give over their minds to a blessed life without havoc, being fearful in their pure intercourse, thus approaching God to the extent possible through their purity of life; embellishing the inner man instead of the outer, so that, adorned with virtues and sweet and blameless ways, there might not be in them the remains of the coarseness of the adversary. But if any should act in opposition to the present Canon, let him be kept from communing.” (See Pedalion, or The Rudder, Thessaloniki: B. Regopoulos, 1982, p. 305).

Commenting in his “Interpretation” of this Canon, St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite punctuates the fact that it provides excommunication (suspension from Holy Communion for a period of time, as specified by one’s Confessor) for “those Christians who style the hair of their head, and comb it and wave it, and flaunt it as enticement to those souls who are of weak faith and easily led astray,” pointing out that this admonition falls on both men and women. He emphasizes that Christians must conduct themselves in an innocent and pure manner, avoiding all vanity and falseness, adorning the soul with virtue and eschewing the marks of the Devil that the stylish adorning of the body entails. (Ibid., pp. 304-306.) – Orthodoxinfo.

Islam probably wasn’t an ideology for most of its history.

What could this mean? I know that Islam appeared about 600 years after Christianity and they copied a quite lot from our tradition. You seem to place it above Christianity (in a way).

Does not say somewhere that the Apostles would dress according to the custom of the region when they went to teach all nations? I do not have anything against “head covering”. I do not like it to be imposed because it is harmful for the church. Yes, even the clothing we wear is a spiritual act but it has to come from inside, not to be imposed.

Many people are going to hell holding their Bibles in their hands. All the denominations that are out there are focusing on different passages of the Scriptures and interpreting them without seeing the connection with similar paragraphs. We are the Apostles of our time and we may dress according to the custom of the “region”. What contemporary saint that you know of was so strict regarding a dress code? St John Maximovitch severely admonished his flock when they went to a Halloween party instead of coming to church but I did not hear that he imposed a dress code. Looks like you want to copy from Islam. We do not need anything from them.

As I wrote above, it depends on how technical you want to be in defining “ideology”. Islam probably wasn’t an ideology for most of its history. Islamism, the political application of Islam, could be considered an ideology. The early years of a religion, and serious revivals of it, do have a distinct ideological character to them. They begin to think of their beliefs as a system to be applied to change the world, take organized, focused concerted actions to make it happen, and initiate (or revive) some sense of internal accountability toward this end. That was certainly the case in early Islam and the Islam of the Islamic Revival. It is also true of the early Church and would be true of any real Christian revival. Of course, a Christianism would apply different methods to achieve a different goal than Islamism, but if you need a very rough example to help you understand my point, that will have to do.

The early Church was much more disciplined about excommunicating wrongdoers, restricting divorce, witnessing against a pagan culture (even to the point of martyrdom), modesty, tithing, etc.

“For this reason the woman should have authority on her head, because of the angels.” – 1 Corinthians 11:10

What part of this do you all not understand or believe?

“You want to impose very tight rules on the practicing Orthodox such that they cannot keep them. This is what the Pharisees were blamed for.”

Women covering their heads is not a “very tight rule” except when viewed from a progressive perspective in a progressive society. It is utterly easy to cover ones head. Much easier than fasting. The only thing stopping a person is feminist pride. If that is your view, so be it.

“If we are nothing but an evolved piece of protoplasm sucked from the primordial ooze by chance, there are no answers to those questions, they become supersitious legalisms of no value or merit.”

Agreed. The key words there are “nothing but” and “by chance”.

“I, for one, would much rather have as a parishoner a reforming whore who has no modest clothes, but is seeking union with Christ, than all the legalistic pretenders in the world.”

a. But you would eventually want the “reforming whore” to actually reform her dress habits, even donating appropriate clothing for her, I assume.

b. If you have degenerated to the point that you think head covering is legalistic pretension, then there’s nothing I can say to persuade you otherwise. 1900 hundred years of legalistic pretension in the Church and a recent “enlightenment” that it’s all pharisaical, including St. Paul (and during his post-Pharisee period no less. I’m sure he would be amused.)

It is amazing to me the defenses that you all put up against women covering their heads. First, Eliot raises the specter of a young woman visiting the church for the first time met at the door and assaulted by someone making her cover her head before she even has a chance to hear the Creed. Then he suggests that it is some intolerable burden. Then you, Michael, pull out the situation of a recovering prostitute who has no appropriate clothing. Does any of this have any application whatsoever to a general policy of women covering their heads?

You are scared that you will be perceived as misogynistic and that you will scare off those whose sensibilities have been deranged by feminism. That is what is at work here and that is all that is at work here, rationalizations aside.