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Camera Obscura: Women and Church Leadership

by Patricia Fann Bouteneff

Raise your hand if you knew that a priest in the Orthodox Church may not celebrate the Eucharist on his own. There must always be at least one other person present, in order to form a “congregation.” I learned this in my catechumenate thirty years ago, and it still strikes me as beautiful that our church insists that the Eucharist always be a shared event.

Patricia Fann Bouteneff

A former academic and corporate chief of staff, is an independent scholar who specializes in folklore and Pontic Greek studies. You can find her translations and studies of folktales at cyberpontos.com. Baptized at a metochi of Simonopetra in Thessaloniki, she has been active in church communities in Greece, England, Switzerland, and the US, and at present sits on the parish council of Holy Trinity Orthodox Church in Yonkers, New York.

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