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Can you talk about the biblical symbolism behind the idea of the church being the bride of Christ? I’m getting married on Saturday, which I guess has already happened. Congratulations by the way, Nathan, for your wedding. This is one of the sticking points for my fiance and I and our respective families. They seem to use this symbolism to suggest that the wife should be subservient to her husband, while the husband should love his wife as Christ loved the church. Any insight you can give on St. Paul’s letter would be appreciated. I think you’re referring to that text in Ephesians that talks about the relationship between Christ and the church and between a husband and his wife, but also in a way a husband and his family. I think that here, this is really where you can see the difference between, let’s say, when we talk about hierarchy and when I talk about hierarchy, it’s very important to understand that especially when we’re talking about the church and we’re talking about a Christian hierarchy, it’s quite different from what you could call a pagan hierarchy or a more secular hierarchy, or let’s say something like a military hierarchy. What’s really interesting in Ephesians, what’s interesting to notice is just how the contrast between the way that Paul sets up the relationship between the husband and the wife between Christ and the church and the way that it’s set up in Christianity. And so the way that it would have been set up in the Roman times would have been a strict hierarchy. That is, the way it’s set up is that you have the master, you have the top of the hierarchy, it could be the king, it could be the man of the household, or it could be any kind of social hierarchy. The top of the hierarchy, everybody that’s under that person is there to serve the top of the hierarchy. So the man is at the top and his wife is under him, the man gives direction and the woman follows the direction. Then his children also, at the same time, his servants in his house or his slaves would have been also part of his household. And then everybody would be kind of aligned on the top of the hierarchy and were there to submit their will to the top of that hierarchy. Now, we still have hierarchies like that today. We still have plenty of them. Often corporate hierarchies work that way and military hierarchies work that way. And there’s nothing wrong per se with that hierarchy in itself. It’s just one form of hierarchy. It has some problems, but for sure the Christian hierarchy presents a different vision. And it presents a vision which is viewed in light of the message of Christ and the idea that God loves the world. That in a way, God created the world to serve him, but at the same time there’s this weird relationship where at the same time, God loves his creation and wants to be joined with his creation up to the point of actually becoming incarnate within his creation. And so in the Christian household, then you have the normal hierarchy that is in the notion is that the man is the head of the household, that he gives the direction, he gives identity. We still have that symbolism in the notion that, let’s say, a wife will take her husband’s name, for example. And so, but at the same time, it’s quite different because then it’s almost like an interesting completeness where the man, although being at the head of the family, his purpose is to give himself to his family. So his purpose is to love his family, to care for those that are under him, you could say, or that he is of whom he’s the leader. And so it doesn’t become just this, let’s say, strict top-down hierarchy where the purpose is everybody needs to serve whoever’s on the top, but then it becomes this relationship where the woman can give herself to her husband because she knows that her husband is acting in her best interest. And so there becomes this complicit relationship between the two, and then that ends up being manifested in the church itself. We have this idea in Orthodoxy, we do not have the idea of irresistible grace that is presented in some products and circles. We really have this idea that you need an amen for the church service to even be valid. That is, there is this relationship, even between the clergy and the church, where the clergy acts as the top of the hierarchy, let’s say, and represents in a manner the divine coming down and encountering humanity, but then the human aspect or the church has to answer. So you can really almost see it as a loving relationship between a man and a woman. And so the man, let’s say, advances towards the woman, even in a sexual way, the man advances towards the woman, but the woman has to answer. The woman has to answer. And then there’s this play between the active aspect of the man and then the receiving aspect of the female, but the receiving aspect of the woman has to be a yes, has to be an amen. So this complementary relationship between the world. So when you start to see the world that way, then everything is transformed. Even our relationship to nature is transformed. We no longer have this idea of nature as something that we only act upon, this kind of simple vision of the civilizing human who just kind of imprints on the world and basically sets up their civilization. Heidegger talked about this and this idea of seeing nature as this standing in reserve, just waiting for us to use it and to impinge on it our will, but rather there’s this back and forth play between the, let’s say, the acting aspect of the human being and then the possibility of reception from nature. And so nature has to kind of say yes in a way to the way we act upon it and has to answer. And so there’s this constant interplay between the different aspects of the hierarchy. And so in that way, and that’s why there’s so much of, that’s why, for example, the Song of Songs is really this representation of Christ and his church, but also a man and his wife. That is, if you read the Song of Songs, you will see this interplay between the man and the woman, this kind of, the man as the kind of the active character who tries to, who’s approaching his fiance, he’s approaching his lover, and then the lover who is answering and then opening the door and all this imagery that is there, this quite explicit imagery actually that is there in the Song of Songs. And so I hope that answers. You have to be honest. It is an offensive, even what I said is offensive to modern sensibilities, right? Because we really do have this idea that everybody’s the same and that everybody’s role is the same and that everybody, that even the notion that, for example, that in a family the man would have a function of a leader is offensive, but that is really the way that Saint Paul presents it. And I think that if it’s properly done, then everybody kind of finds their, everybody kind of finds their place in a way. But it’s weird to say it that way because we always have to understand also that everybody has those two roles. That is, everybody is, and so the man, for example, is feminine to the extent that he’s part of the church and then answering, let’s say, Christ’s call, right? And so it’s not that one is good or the other is bad or that we all in our lives and even in our own selves, we have, for example, this relationship between our higher aspects, our, what you would call, our thought, our idea, our thinking, and then our bodily existence. And then we need to have this same kind of interplay between the two. If we fly up too high just in our head, then we become disconnected and we’re not integrated, but we need this integration. And in the same way, when I, let’s say, submit myself to the laws of the land, in that relationship, I am acting also in a feminine guise, let’s say. And when a woman, let’s say there’s a leader amongst women and there’s a woman who’s kind of leading other women, then that woman has some masculine function in that group. Like then Abbess, for example, you saw Abbesses in monasteries in the Middle Ages, they even had, they have the right to carry shepherd’s crooks, just like the bishops, and wear crosses and all this stuff. They would actually wear some implements of authority. And in the same way, let’s say a queen or an empress, when she acts, or even the queen of England, for example, the way that she acts, she actually has a masculine function. And then we, as her subjects, whatever, like, you know, actually I am one of her subjects, I guess. It’s hard to realize that because I’m French Canadian, but then we have a feminine role regarding her. So we have to be able to understand the structure, how it’s not arbitrary, but it also is not as limited and as obtuse as some people want to make it.