Women in Church: to Veil or Not to Veil?

Throughout the years of my ministry I often received inquiries from potential visitors about whether or not our congregation had a dress code.  I have always thought that dress codes were to be avoided; they always savoured of self-righteous judgmentalism:  “We’re watching you!  Oh my! Are those bare arms?”  I am reminded of Dorothy Sayers’ words about dress codes in some European churches.  She asked ironically, “Do the officials stationed at church doors in Italy to exclude women with bare arms turn anybody away on the grounds that they are too well dressed to be honest?” A dress code seems to presuppose officials stationed at church doors— or at least are calculated to encourage censorious whispering at coffee hour.  For that reason I always told inquirers that we had no dress code.  Just dress as you would in any respectable public place.

       That includes hats, headscarves, and veils.  The common OCA practice (and I think the Antiochian practice as well), at least in my time, was to make the veiling of women in church a matter of indifference, to be decided entirely by the choices of the women themselves.

       The matter of women covering their heads in church is, I regret to say, complicated.  Being a cultural question and one that relates to cultural mores, it has attracted layers of meaning throughout the centuries.  This means that the issue is not a simple one, requiring a verdict of either “yes” or “no”.  There are layers, and in uncovering the layers, one must distinguish the exegetical question from later cultural ones.  Let me explain.

        The first layer is the Scriptural one, uncovered and explained by exegesis.  St. Paul directed Corinthian women to cover their heads; the passage is found in 1 Corinthians 11:2f.  Apparently some of the Corinthian women hearkened to Paul’s message of gender equality in Christ so that in Christ there was no Jew or Greek, no male and female (compare Galatians 3:28). They concluded from this, without warrant, that all hierarchy, such as hierarchy in marriage, had now been done away.  The public wearing of a veil, the symbol of the hierarchical authority of husband over wife (see 1 Corinthians 11:10) might now be dispensed as well with as an expression of this new and radical egalitarianism.

       St. Paul rejected this conclusion.  Hierarchy still remained: Christ had God as His head, the husband had Christ as his head, and the woman had the husband as her head (1 Corinthians 11:3).  Everyone in that day and culture accepted such hierarchy of husband over wife and Paul explained that it still remained in force among Christians.  Women appearing in public unveiled (note: not just while in church, but while in public) were regarded as shameful, rebellious renegades; such a thing was as shameful as a woman being shamed by being shaved bald (v. 5).  Let a Christian woman therefore appear in public and in church with her head covered.

       We note that foundational to Paul’s argument was the culture of his day.  That is, in first century Corinth women going about with uncovered head were regarded as being in rebellion against their husbands or fathers.  Paul insisted on the validity of hierarchy and so insisted on the retention of the womanly symbol of hierarchy, viz. the veil.

       A moment’s thought will reveal that since then cultural mores have changed in the West and that a woman with an uncovered head is no longer regarded as rebelling against her husband or against societal norms.  Indeed, a bare-headed woman in public now attracts no attention whatsoever.  In our culture therefore Paul would not have insisted upon women being veiled while in public. 

       Here an exegete will distinguish between underlying principles and things that are culturally conditioned.  The timelessly valid underlying principle in Paul’s words here are that women should dress and comport themselves in such a way as to conform to norms of societal respectability, including an acceptance of godly hierarchy such as following her husband’s leadership.  How that principle is expressed will vary from culture to culture and from epoch to epoch.  In Paul’s day that principle was expressed through wearing a veil while in public; in our day, it must find other modes of expression. The underlying principle remains; its mode of cultural expression will vary. It is bad exegesis to fail to distinguish between the timeless principle and the culturally-conditioned expression of it. Insisting that modern western women must veil their heads while in public because Paul said so in first century Corinth savours of blind fundamentalism, not sound exegesis.

       There are, of course, other cultural layers which the veil has attracted over the centuries.  The wearing of the veil has come also to express respect for a holy place and so some women who do not veil themselves in public will still put on a veil before entering a church.  This has nothing to do with St. Paul’s instructions which pertained solely to respectability while in public. (The church assembly was, of course, considered to be a public place, unlike the private home when no guests were present.)  Some therefore would argue for the use of the veil as an expression of this respect for a holy place such as a church.

       Once again, whether a woman’s bare head in church expresses disrespect depends entirely upon the dictates of the culture at the time.  In Russia (I am told) use of the veil indicates respect and lack of a veil indicates disrespect.  In American culture and churches this is not the case and there a bare-headed woman is not regarded as showing any disrespect.  Of course the issue is complicated by demographics: if most of the people in an American church are recent immigrants from Russia, Russian cultural norms will prevail there as well.

       It is true, as some have said, that the custom of women veiling themselves while in church has been the practice of many centuries.  But so has been the practice of women wearing skirts or dresses and not jeans or pants.  If the latter fashion can change, then why not the former?  Both are simply matters of custom, having no real connection to apostolic commands.

Long-standing custom and ethnic practice become more complicated still when an inter-generational component is added. I recall reading one article written by a Greek woman who insisted that women should not veil themselves in church as their grandmother’s did because such a veiling would indicate a recent Greek immigrant, one unassimilated into American culture and she thought that assimilation to American culture should be expressed by dispensing with the veil worn by their (then) newly-immigrated grandmothers.  I take her point. 

       Then there is the added complication of converts.  Some converts want to express their new membership in Orthodoxy by wearing a veil and showing respect for the cultures of Russia and Greece.  The veil for them comes to symbolize their transition from Protestantism to Orthodoxy.  A part of this may also involve a woman wanting to differentiate herself from secular feminism by showing her submission to her husband and acceptance of godly hierarchy by wearing a veil.

My point is that the issue is clearly complicated with layers laid upon layers and that one size does not fit all.  Since I first wrote about the use of the veil in my 2005 commentary on 1-2 Corinthians, much has changed, both in our culture and in the nature of the converts coming to the Orthodox Church.  Now as then, a large modicum of charity and patience is required. 

Some women will choose to veil themselves for a variety of reasons, while other women will choose to not wear a veil for a variety of reasons.  All women should be accepted.  One thing is certain:  St. Paul’s strictures and his insistence on wearing the veil have nothing to say to our modern situation and the multitude of factors that the women must weigh and consider for themselves.  Paul was responding to cultural challenges in his own day.  We must respond to our own cultural challenges as we think best and refuse to judge and condemn those who respond differently.