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Fresco from St Herman of Alaska church, with female saints

Women in Eastern Orthodoxy: Questions of Pastoral and Liturgical Participation

This international academic conference will focus on the role of women in Eastern Orthodoxy from pastoral and liturgical perspectives. The conference is organised by the School of Theology of the University of Eastern Finland in cooperation with the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies and the Orthodox Church of Finland.
  • Seminaari
  • Kielet ja kulttuurit
Alkamispäivä:
9:00
Päättymispäivä:
17:00
Tapahtumapaikka:
Fabianinkatu 24 A, 00100 Helsinki / Kirkkokatu 6, 00170 Helsinki
Lisätietoja:
The Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies / Tieteiden talo
Lisää kalenteriin:
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Seminar Theme

The role of women within the Eastern Orthodox tradition is shaped by the Orthodox Church's canonical principles and hierarchical structures, as well as different cultural expectations regarding women. In practice, women often form the bedrock of the Church's congregational life. In recent decades, there has been renewed scholarly attention to questions of ministry, participation in liturgical life, historical precedents for women’s roles and pastoral needs in contemporary Orthodox communities. How is this reflected in practice locally? What theological considerations are involved in discussions about the role of women in Eastern Orthodoxy?

 

Programme

Date: Monday, 2 November 2026

Time zone: EET (UTC+2)

Address: Fabianinkatu 24 A, 00100 Helsinki

https://maps.app.goo.gl/a3csYJPGmrLjeDBB7

9.00–9.10 Words of Welcome

9.10–10.40 Session I: Negotiating the Roles for Women

  • Pekka Metso, Observations on the Ongoing Discussion Regarding Women’s Roles in the Church within the Orthodox Church of Finland
  • Irina Paert & Liina Eek, Matushki as a Test of Patriarchy: Clerical Wives and Symbolic Capital in Estonian Orthodox Parishes Past and Present
  • Nadezhda Beliakova, The Order of Deaconesses as a Path to the Recognition of Women’s Ministries: Pre-Conciliar and Conciliar Debates in the Orthodoxy of the Russian Empire and Their Post-Soviet Silences

10.50–12.20 Session II: Women’s Agency at Times of Crisis

  • Zhanna Timofeeva, Shadowed Agency: Women in Newly Forming Ukrainian Orthodox Parishes in Germany
  • Sabina Bodin Hadzibulic, Serbian Orthodox Women in Sweden:  Agency, Roles, and Engagement in the Serbian Orthodox Church
  • Kaja Kojder & Abel Abrha Asgedom, Faith, Survival, and Agency: Ethiopian Orthodox Women at the Polish-Belarusian Border

12.20–14.00 Lunch (self-funded)

14.00–15.30 Session III: Women’s Space in History

  • Zhengnan Zhao, Monasticism Without an Altar: Women's Religious Communities and the Female Religious Life in Early Nineteenth-Century Russia
  • Georgeta Fodor, Gender Norms in Romanian Orthodox Periodicals of the Second Half of the XIXth Century
  • Aikaterini Karadima, Sacred Landscapes in Motion: Women's Agency in the Reconstruction of Orthodox Religious Life after the 1923 Population Exchange

15.30–16.00 Coffee

16.00–17.15 Keynote Lecture: Ashley M. Purpura, Liberating Orthodoxy: Exploring Orthodox Christianity’s Feminist Theological Potential

18.00 Conference Dinner

 

Tuesday, 3 November 2026 

Address: House of Science and Letters (Tieteiden talo), Kirkkokatu 6

https://maps.app.goo.gl/C6qafdzyjyECPMS58

9.00–10.30 Session IV: Gender and Catholicity

  • Teemu Toivonen & Helena Kupari, Gender and (In)equality Issues as Motifs for Leaving Orthodoxy
  • Crystallia Latsara, Towards an Ecclesiology of Anarchy
  • Katherine Kelaidis, Rethinking “Masculine Orthodoxy”: Gender, Authority, and Modernity

Coffee

10.45–12.15 Session IV: Approaches to Authority and Ministry

  • Andreas Bergman, The Voice of the Holy Spirit in the Church: Conciliar Authority, the Normativity of Universal Tradition, and the Question of Women’s Liturgical Participation
  • Nina Glibetic, Confession and the Amma: Women's Spiritual Authority in the Byzantine Tradition
  • Lloyd George Abercrombie, Inculturation? An Exploratory Reframing of Female Leadership and Ordination in the Orthodox Church

12.15–13 Lunch

13.00–14.30 Session VI: Voices from the Margins

  • Evangelia Spyrakou, The Chanting Woman from Byzantium to Greek Orthodoxy Today: Liturgical Office, Sources, and the Question of Continuity
  • Natalia Sidorenko, A Difficult Verse Revisited: Eastern Orthodox Interpretations of 1 Timothy 2:15 ("Women Will Be Saved through Childbearing")
  • Aleksandra Michalska, Between Charisma and Marginality: Female Prophetic Authority in Eastern Orthodoxy through the Cases of Prepodobna Stoyna and Baba Vanga

14.40–16.10 Session VII: Women’s Participation and Its Potentials

  • Irena Nikaj, Women’s Liturgical Presence and Visual Authority in Eastern Orthodoxy: Albanian Art, Heritage, and Lived Tradition
  • Elena Kravchenko, Russian Orthodox Women, Practices of Obedience, and the Power of Ethnic Identity
  • Ann Marie Mecera, Beyond the Clergy: The Need for Pastoral Care in our Parishes Today

16.20 Conclusion

 

The conference is part of an event organised by the Orthodox Church of Finland in cooperation with Filantropia, Orthodox Clergy Association, Orthodox Youth Association, Helsinki Orthodox Parish, and University of Eastern Finland.

Registration

Registration for audience members is open until 25 October 2026 (see the link above). The link for remote participation will only be sent to those who have registered.

Organizers / Inquiries

Maria Takala-Roszczenko, University of Eastern Finland [email protected]

Teemu Toivonen, University of Eastern Finland [email protected]

Talvikki Ahonen, Åbo Akademi University [email protected] 

Ksenia Medvedeva, The Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies

 

Photo by Kati Räihä-Velentza: Fresco with Orthodox saints in St Herman of Alaska Church, Helsinki Orthodox Parish