Contributing Authors: Fr. John Behr Dr. Spyridoula Athanasopoulou-Kypriou Dr. Dionysios Skliris Fr. Andrew Louth Dr. Mary Cunningham Met Kallistos Ware Rev Dr. Sarah Hinlicky Wilson Dr. Kyriaki Karidoyanes FitzGerald Dr. Carrie Frederick Frost Dr. Paul Ladouceur Luis Josue Sales This book--a collaborative, international initiative, involving academic theologians and practitioners--invites the reader into a conversation about the ordination of women in the Orthodox Church. It explores questions relating to the significance of being human, Eve's curse, sexed bodies, the place of Mary, the nature of the priesthood, the role of the deacon, and the task of being a priest. in the twenty-first century. The reflections move across three main areas of discussion: issues of theological anthropology, particular questions pertaining to the priesthood and the diaconate, and contemporary practices. In each area, the implications for ordaining women in the Orthodox Church today are explored.

The Life of One Chosen by God: A Study of the OT stories of Moses in Jewish, Christian and Muslim sourcesby Elena NarinskayaAbstractMoses is an inspirational prophetic figure in Jewish, Christian and Muslim religioustraditions. This book journeys through the Abrahamic faiths and illustrates their respectivedepictions of the Moses' stories.Each chapter of the book examines the stories of the Prophet Moses in the biblical narrativeof the Old Testament, in the exegesis of the Jewish Midrash and the Christian writer Ephremthe Syrian, and in the passages of the Qur'an. The book shows the relationship between thefour primary sources and consequently between the religious traditions, which they represent.In exploring the differences and similarities between the Hebrew Bible, Jewish rabbinicalcommentaries, Syriac Christian exegesis, and the Qur'an, this book seeks for a deeperunderstanding of the Prophet Moses in the religious history of humanity. In doing so thestudy offers a collaborative portrayal of the figure of Moses from the point of view commonto all three of the Abrahamic religions. The overall attempt of the study in this book is toconsider the exegetical writings of the Midrash, Ephrem the Syrian, and the Qur'an under theumbrella term of the common tradition of biblical exegesis of Abrahamic heritage.This book explores the varying perspectives of each of the religious traditions, and also unitesthem in their common endeavour to interpret the figure of Moses in relation to the biblicalnarrative of the Old Testament, as well as in relation to the respective religious traditions ofeach other. This book describes a two-way process of exegetical endeavour between the studied sources.On the one hand, the exegetical writings of the Midrash, Ephrem, and the Qur'an arepresented in this book as being inspired by the original biblical narrative of the OldTestament. On the other hand, their exegetical accomplishments feed back into the biblicalnarrative about Moses, enriching it with new insights, colours and depths. Consequently thestudy in this book steps into the area of overlap and influence between the original sourcesand describes different levels of collaboration between them.