https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=7uxxC_SHiUM
All right, so, joser733 asks, hello, in your mystery of Ethiopian iconography article, you wrote for the Orthodox Art Journal, you wrote, like all Miephysite churches, men and women are separated with men on the northern side and women on the southern side, opposite to Greek and Russian tradition, and the iconography seems to reflect this. Could you please explain how the understanding of Christ’s unity affects how men and women are arranged in the church? Well, just not in every church, but there are several churches in which women will be on the side of the virgin. So if you look at the church, you have the iconostasis, and you have the mother of God on your left side, and then you have Christ on your right side when you’re looking at the altar. And usually, women in churches that separate the sexes, women will be on the side of the virgin, and then men will be on the side of Christ. And I’ve seen it, I’ve actually been in churches where it actually was the, no, it’s mostly on that side that Greek and Russian tradition has. And so, and you ask, could you explain how the understanding of Christ’s unity affects how many women are arranged in the church? I don’t, the thing is that this is also the, it’s so difficult because unity doesn’t negate multiplicity. Unity is not a negation of multiplicity. And so this is really a modern way of understanding where we think that the negation of, okay, so this is really something that I guess I’ve hinted at, but I think it’s really important to talk about. And so everybody quotes the verse where St. Paul says, there is no man, neither man nor woman, there is no Greek, no Jew, but we are all one in Christ. And that is, of course, absolutely true. That is that as you move up the mountain, right, as you go closer and closer to Christ, then the distinction and the multiplicity starts to fall away and then we enter into the unity of Christ. And in that unity, we do not, those distinctions no longer hold in the unity. But there is also a manner in which multiplicity, even in that unity is preserved. And so there is a reality to the extent that we are neither man nor woman, but there’s also reality in which there is man and women. And that’s how children are produced. And there are Greeks and Jews because Greeks, there are Greeks, Jews, and Canadians and Americans because some people live in America and some people live in Canada. So multiplicity isn’t a node for all reality. And so in the church, it means that there is a breathing in and breathing out of this movement towards unity and transcendence and this expression in hierarchy and multiplicity in the world. And so we don’t eliminate the hierarchy of the different aspects of the church, right? The nave, the narthex, the nave and the altar. We don’t remove that nor do we remove the separation of the sexes. And so, but it doesn’t mean that there’s only one way to do it. Like I said, not all churches and most churches in North America, I would say don’t separate men and women in the church, but some do. And I think that some, the reason why you would separate men in the church, men and women in the church is the reason why you want to separate men and women in general, which is that you want to avoid confusion. You want to avoid, you want people to be focused on what we’re, actually by separating us, we’re focused on what we’re joining together above us rather than thinking of how we can get joined at this level because there’s ways in which we can also join in the other manner. And so it’s usually probably to avoid wandering eyes and to avoid people being, you know, their minds kind of wandering during the services, but rather being focused on Christ. But there also is a cosmic reason to do that as well. So I hope that makes sense. Thank you.