All the paths of adulthood are open equally to every individual, and in each the Orthodox Church...

[Anonymous]

All the paths of adulthood are open equally to every individual, and in each the Orthodox Church affirms the full equality and dignity of each human person created in the image and likeness of God. While the Church acknowledges that men and women have different life experiences, and incarnate human nature in distinct fashions, it must reject any suggestion that one surpasses the other in spiritual dignity. As St. Basil noted of men and women: “The natures are alike of equal honor, the virtues are equal, the struggle equal, the judgment alike” [Basil of Caesarea, Discourse 1, 18: On the Origin of Humanity. PG 30.33D]. And as St. Gregory the Theologian affirmed: “The same Creator for man and woman, for both of them the same clay, the same image, the same law, the same death, and the same resurrection” [Gregory the Theologian, Discourse 37.6. PG 36.289C]. That said, the inequality of men and women in almost every sphere of life is one of the tragic realities of our fallen world. In fact, while the Orthodox Church has always held as a matter of doctrine and theology that men and women are equals in personhood, it has not always proved scrupulously faithful to this ideal. The Church has, for instance, for far too long retained in her prayers and Eucharistic practices ancient and essentially superstitious prejudices about purity and impurity in regard to women’s bodies, and has even allowed the idea of ritual impurity to attach itself to childbirth. Yet no Christian woman who has prepared herself for communion through prayer and fasting should be discouraged from approaching the chalice. The Church must also remain attentive to the promptings of the Spirit in regard to the ministry of women, especially in our time, when many of the most crucial offices of ecclesial life—theologians, seminary professors, canonists, readers, choir directors, and experts in any number of professions that benefit the community of faith—are occupied by women in increasingly great numbers; and the Church must continue to consider how women can best participate in building up the body of Christ, including a renewal of the order of the female diaconate for today.

- Ecumenical Patriarchate. FOR THE LIFE OF THE WORLD: Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church; 29.