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January 09, 2010 - The Prized Cross

by Father Edward L. Beck, C.P.

While some of you may have been stuck in post holiday doldrums, some of us celebrated the Feast of the Epiphany this week.  That’s when we recall the Magi coming to give gifts to the Christ child.  For many Orthodox Christians, it’s an even more significant feast than Christmas.  A little known tradition is to dive for a silver cross that’s tossed into the sea. It’s traditionally been a male only ritual, but this week a 16 year old Albanian girl broke that tradition.  Katerina Munguli snatched the cross from the bottom of a frigid Ionian Sea. She beat a dozen diving boys and men also trying to snare the prized religious symbol.  It’s believed that the one who retrieves the cross gets special blessings.  That fact that a girl did it though may be blessing enough. Statistics continue to show that despite advances, equality for women lags around the globe, particularly in employment and health care. Women also have higher mortality rates than males, especially in Africa and Asia. You would think that religion would try to address some of this inequality, but many perceive institutional religion as sexist as society in general.  Women still cannot be ordained priests in the Orthodox or Roman Catholic Churches, and aren't respected as equals in some other faiths as well. In some Islamic countries women are punished for exposing an arm or part of leg and can’t even drive a car. This past summer Jimmy Carter severed ties with his own Southern Baptist Convention after sixty years as a faithful member. He did so because the group said that women must be subservient to their husbands and were prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in military service.   And yet, it doesn’t seem to have always been so.  There is evidence that in the early church women were deacons, apostles, teachers, prophets, and some claim even priests and bishops. Jesus appeared to women first after his Resurrection, telling THEM to spread the Good News. So, have we gone backward instead of forward in 2000 years?  Some would say yes.  But for now there’s at least one girl in Albania clutching a cross that says more about victory than defeat. And it's one more step forward.