Women Officeholders in the Early Church
 Thanks to the painstaking work of contemporary scholars, we now
have compelling evidence that women held leadership and ministerial
roles in the early church similar to those held by men. Inscriptions
and images found on papyri, tombstones, frescos and mosaics show
early Christian women served as apostles, prophets, teachers of
theology, priests, deacons, stewards, enrolled widows and even
bishops.
This short monograph was written by FutureChurch’s Sr. Christine
Schenk. It is an introduction to the work of two scholars: Ute
Eisen and Dorothy Irvin.
Eisen's book: Women Officeholders in Early Christianity (Liturgical
Press, 2000) is an exhaustive study of the literary and epigraphical
evidence for women officeholders from the ancient Church to the
Middle Ages. Her shows that women led and served communities Asia
Minor, Greece, Spain, Egypt, Sicily, Italy, Palestine and Yugoslavia.
Dorothy Irvin holds a pontifical doctorate in Catholic Theology
from the University of Tubingen, Germany with specialization in
bible, ancient near eastern studies and archeology. For the last
twenty years she has been an active field archeologist. Her calendars:
The Archeology of Women's Traditional Ministries in the Church have made recent discoveries more widely accessible to the general
public.(email: irvincalendar@hotmail.com)
Attractively presented, the 5000 word monograph includes a map
of the Mediterranean world showing where archeologic data about
women priests, deacons and bishops was found as well as line
drawings of ancient inscriptions produced by archeologist Dorothy
Irvin.
To see an excerpt click here
To order ($2.00 each) click here
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