• God is a Woman: Women in Positions of High Religious Authority in the Early Church

This paper challenges the Catholic Church’s frequent appeal to tradition in matters of opposing female ordination, specifically its claim that priestly roles have, from the Church’s inception, been reserved exclusively for men. It argues that a close and unbiased examination of historical sources reveals that women in the early Church were ordained to major positions such as presbyters and bishops, roles that conferred substantial religious authority. Furthermore, it contends that the widespread ignorance of this tradition today stems from a deliberate process of censorship by the Catholic Church which sought to legitimizing a later patriarchal structure by erasing evidence of women’s liturgical leadership.

The first section of the paper analyzes the figure of Mary as a holder of high ecclesiastical office in both the Jewish and Christian religions through her representations in the extracanonical gospels, such as the Protoevangelium of James and the Life of the Virgin and early Christian art. It argues that these portrayals of Mary as a religious leader legitimized women's religious authority in early Christianity. The second section examines the funerary portraits of Cerula and Bitalia, found in the San Gennaro Catacombs in Naples, as examples of women holding high ecclesiastical positions in the late 5th to early 6th century. The final section of the paper traces the gradual erasure of women's liturgical authority in the early Church. It highlights this suppression through changes in Mary’s representations in art, the establishment of canonical text lists such as that of Athanasius of Alexandria in the 4th century, and the intentional reinterpretation of key passages by modern translators like Stephen Shoemaker. The essay concludes that the Catholic Church’s continued exclusion of women from leadership rests on a flawed view of tradition.