​On Head Covering at St. Andrew’s

by Hannah Harney

​Christ Is Risen! Some questions about head covering for women recently came up and we’d like to briefly address it here. It is a big and very interesting topic, however, and if you’d like to know more, I will link a few articles at the bottom.

The first question about head covering specifically at St. Andrew’s was “Is it required for women to cover their heads?”  and the answer is No.  Head covering is a pious custom which is given to us not in an oppressive dominating way but as a gift.  As with all pious customs and practices, it reveals to us a deeper spiritual reality that aids us on our journey towards Christ and the Kingdom of Heaven.  So while we don’t see it as a requirement it is encouraged to practice it symbolically with that spiritual reality in mind.

Which begs the second question – Why? What is that spiritual reality that is revealed through the act of covering our head?  We have these answers in St. Paul’s epistle to the Corinthians, chapter 11. Although, it is by no means an easy answer I will try to give you the bullet points and encourage you to look deeper into this and read what some have written very eloquently about.

+ The distinction of Men and Women.  While it was revolutionary for women in the 1st century to participate in worship in an equal capacity with men, both praying and prophesying, St. Paul in this chapter is directly refuting the prevailing centuries old teaching of Plato that since men and women share the same nature, there is no real distinction between them and no reason why they should not perform the same functions.  St. Paul in a tongue and cheek way teaches us that there is equal glory in Manliness and Womanliness but that their glory is in their distinctiveness and the roles cannot simply be exchanged. To give up one’s glory does not grant him or her the glory of the other, it just relinquishes the glory that is inherent to them.  St. Paul also uses the reality of the distinction between men and women which he states is found in nature to reveal the distinction of the two persons of the Trinity, Father and Son.  Though they share one Divine essence and nature, they are two distinct persons. The Son is equal in divinity with the Father and is begotten of (comes from) the Father is willingly subject to the Father.

+ “A woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head for the sake of the Angels.”  This one is a little more complicated.  The word for authority used here is “exousia” and is the same word St. John used in his Gospel when he said, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right (exousia) to become children of God, to those who believe in His name.”  So, this head covering is a vestment prescribed for all women as a symbol of her right to be called a child of God!  And the Angels? They are present in the service and we mystically represent them. The defining characteristic of the Angels is their obedience and reverence before God. The cherubic hymn for Holy Saturday says, “The many eyed cherubim and six-winged seraphim cover their faces while they sing the thrice holy hymn.”  St. John Chrysostom relates women to the angelic powers when they cover their heads. He says it induces them to look down in humility and be ashamed. Not ashamed of being women, but ashamed before the Awesome Holiness of God! This particular symbol is paradoxically both a sign of right and authority and of submission and humility.

+ For the sake of Angels and Genesis 6. Tertullian of Carthage connects St. Paul’s teaching to Genesis 6 in which the Sons of God (angels) were tempted by the daughters of men and fell.  So this gesture of modesty further acknowledges the presence of angels in our worship and our desire not to disrupt them by co-mingling reverent worship and impropriety.

+ Finally: Because of Tradition.  It has been the Tradition of the Church since her foundation that women cover their heads and in almost every culture at every time it has served as a form of modesty. It was even the custom in the western world that women wore some sort of hat or covering at all times until as recently as the 20th century.  But the 1900s brought a new age of enlightenment and notions of modesty, reverence for holy places, and eventually gender distinctions were gradually cast aside.  But the Orthodox church does not have a practice of changing her profound symbolism or traditions to suit the ideologies of the times. St. Paul said in this chapter and St. John Chrysostom paraphrased that “To oppose this teaching is contentiousness, which is irrational. The Corinthians might object, but if they do so, they are going against the practice of the Universal Church.”  To him, women not keeping this practice because of cultural norms or modern sensibilities would be as wrong as Priests not wearing their prescribed vestments for the same reasons. Our Clergy have not forsaken the deeply symbolic vestments, each holding their own meaning from the cuffs to the omophorion, for more comfortable or fashionable alternatives.

I hope this brief explanation inspires you to consider this practice, whether you wear a veil or scarf or not. Or if you’re a man wondering why someone told you to remove your hat when you come into the Church!  But most importantly, I hope that this inspires you to ask questions about other seemingly foreign or obscure practices. You might just find a treasury of spiritual reality hidden just under the surface.

https://www.saintjohnchurch.org/head-coverings-ultimate-guide/
​
​
http://orthodoxinfo.com/praxis/headcoverings.aspx#:~:text=Fr.,%E2%80%9CI%20am%E2%80%9D%20reflected%20outwardly.
https://orthochristian.com/148078.html