Ancient Faith’s long and long-awaited audio documentary on deaconesses aired last night to the relief of some and the dismay of others. Overall, it turned out better than I expected, with its hosts, Fr. Thomas Soroka and Ancient Faith’s founder and former CEO John Maddex, seeming to agree in the end that the case for making deaconesses had not been made.

The documentary did give the faithful some cause for concern, however. The first was how the documentary was advertised as including over a dozen “experts” from both sides yet did not include some very vocal opponents of deaconesses who have at least as much if not more right to be considered “experts” as those in the documentary.

Fr. Thomas tried to head off that criticism very early in his opening remarks, mentioning his AF interview with me on August 1, 2023. This was to me personally gratifying and greatly relieving, and I thank him for it. But it was quickly undercut by John Maddex’s opening remarks, in which he stressed that he had selected his “experts” because they could be trusted to be “irenic” in discussing the issue and not “demonize” others or contribute to the “polarization” of the faithful.

So, why exactly was I not included in the documentary? Was it just that I had already had my say? Or was it because I’m not irenic, I’m polarizing, I name names? It is not unreasonable to suspect that I was not included because I myself have been demonized by some of the “experts” in the documentary. (Indeed, I know I have.) It is also not unreasonable to see the listing of all those “experts” and the inclusion among them of several who have indeed demonized me as evidence that Maddex has allowed the other side to define the limits of respectability. I hope that is not the case, but it is how things appeared.

(I have experienced such treatment decades ago when I was writing about women in the military: More than once, I was invited to appear on a network television show, and then later disinvited. In one case, the scheduler was candid enough to tell me that I was being disinvited because their expert on the other side had refused to appear with me. That’s what feminists do when they’ve met their match.)  

Also disappointing was the documentary’s opening segment on the history of deaconesses. Everyone interviewed for this segment seemed to agree that St. Phoebe was a deaconess and that the order did exist as perfectly orthodox from apostolic times. There is good reason to believe that this is not the case and that the order instead arose later as a result of anachronistic readings of the mention of St. Phoebe in Romans 16. This would explain the why the West had no tradition of deaconesses and why evidence of deaconesses in the East before the fourth century is so slight.

It was admitted that deaconesses did not exist everywhere, but there was no discussion of why this was so—no mention of the Western councils forbidding the making of deaconesses and no discussion of early Christian teaching about male and female that would have explained such resistance. How can we possibly understand ancient deaconesses not knowing why they were resisted? This is an obvious problem for feminists: They want us to believe that early Christians were more egalitarian than we are today, but they can only sustain that fiction by ignoring everything early Christians taught about male and female.

Another weakness of the documentary was its discussion of the fundamental issue of the relevance of sex and gender to ordination. Some of what was said on this subject was meet and right—mainly that the Church has not been challenged on this issue until now, and so it is only now needing to delve into the great mystery of male and female. The valid point was made that priesthood is about fatherhood, but those making it did not go nearly far enough in explaining the connection, and the chat online quickly pointed out the problem with an underdeveloped fatherhood argument, which is that mothers also act as priests in the home in the absence of fathers.

Other suggested justifications of the exclusion of women from the priesthood were brief and unconvincing, and no mention was made at all of my own work on the subject, which includes two books, a journal article (in St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly), several talks (including one at the St. Phoebe Center conference), and many blog posts. The documentary’s strongest argument against women as priests was that women have never been priests. Feminist themselves make this argument to allay fears that women deacons will lead to women priests. But many of the same feminists say they see no “theological” reason why women can’t be priests, and the documentary also seemed to see no theological reason. The impression left was that we can’t have women priests because we’ve never had women priests, but nobody can say why. I can say why, and I have. The experts just need to pay attention.

Despite these faults, the documentary moved steadily toward opposition to deaconesses. Attempts by feminists to justify deaconesses on the basis of need came off as especially weak, with the point being made very well by Dr. Jeannie Constantinou and several others that none of the duties for which women are truly needed require ordination. (Even when there were deaconesses, the rule was that in the absence of a deaconess any pious woman could perform the duties of a deaconess—not so with the duties of deacons and priests.)

Then there was the final segment on the need for unity within the Church. Maddex introduced this segment with a recording of Carrie Frost dismissing the argument that making deaconesses now will divide the Church. Carrie, I am sure, was thinking of me when she said that. I made that argument emphatically at a St. Phoebe Center conference in Irvine, Calif., in 2017. The other side at the conference scoffed at the idea. Maddex, however, spoke strongly in favor of unity, especially now when Church unity is threatened by so many other issues. Why add another? Why make many people mad just to make a few feminists happy?

It did seem from the chat that many people are mad about the possibility of having deaconesses forced on them, seeing deaconesses as a feminist project inseparable from the gender insanity of the LGBTQ+ onslaught. Were some in the audience intemperate in their comments? Even if they were, it was comforting to see that the faithful are not going to sit quietly by while feminists have their way with the Church.

So all in all, the documentary seems to have done more good than harm, and we should thank Ancient Faith and especially Fr. Thomas Soroka for their offering.