Gender Essentialism and Orthodoxy

Within contemporary orthodoxy, debates over sex and gender have become increasingly polemical over the past generation. Beginning with questions around women’s ordination, arguments have expanded to include feminism, sexual orientation, the sacrament of marriage, definitions of family, adoption of children, and care of transgender individuals. Preliminary responses to each of these topics are shaped by gender essentialism, the idea that male and female are ontologically fixed and incommensurate categories with different sets of characteristics and gifts for each sex. These categories, in turn, delineate gender roles in the family, the church, and society.

Gender Essentialism and Orthodoxy offers an immanent critique of gender essentialism in the stream of the contemporary Orthodox Church influenced by the “Paris School” of Russian émigré theologians and their heirs. It uses an interdisciplinary approach to bring into conversation patristic reflections on sex and gender, personalist theological anthropology, insights from gender and queer theory, and modern biological understandings of human sexual differentiation. Though these are seemingly unrelated discourses, Gender Essentialism and Orthodoxy reveals unexpected points of convergence, as each line of thought eschews a strict gender binary in favor of more open-ended possibilities.

The study concludes by drawing out some theological implications of the preceding findings as they relate to the ordination of women to the priesthood, same-sex unions and sacramental understandings of marriage, definitions of family, and pastoral care for intersex, transgender, and nonbinary parishioners.

Bryce E. Rich holds a PhD in Theology from the University of Chicago. He has participated in six conferences on Orthodoxy and sexuality in Finland, Norway, and England.Bryce E. Rich holds a PhD in Theology from the University of Chicago. He has participated in six conferences on Orthodoxy and sexuality in Finland, Norway, and England.

Moving beyond the binaries in Orthodoxy is a heavy lift. Bryce Rich does so with erudition and candor.

Women, gender, and sexuality have been deeply divisive issues for Orthodox Christians, especially in recent decades. In this book, Bryce Rich offers a constructive way forward. He brings sound learning, clear thinking, and patient explication. With discernment and wisdom, he guides the reader through an honest treatment of biblical and patristic foundations, considers the impact of major scientific findings, and assesses questions raised by trajectories in modern theology. The results are illuminating and profoundly significant for us all. This is a game-changer, and one for which we can be grateful.---Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Brown University

Bryce Rich undertakes an ambitious re-interpretation of Eastern Orthodox doctrines about fixed gender dualism. Returning to Orthodox sources while sharing their deepest commitments, he finds many credible warrants for alternate teachings and more generous pastoral approaches. Since the practice is humanly urgent, it calls for serious theoretical attention. As Rich proposes better grounded conclusions about sex and gender, he reminds readers of the incarnate diversity of their sanctification—and the tender humility needed to witness it or to assist it.---Mark D. Jordan, Harvard Divinity School