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Vol. 2 No. 10 June 2A03

Direction from anDearXXX:I received your interestirg link to a Web site onChristian (modesQ clothing. I must express my personalopinion-and this assuredly just, my simple opinion-about this Web site and about clothing issues in general.The issue of clothittg in contemporary orthodoxyis a delicate one. We are not Puritans or Mosleffis, andwe do not believe, as Orthodox Christians, that the hu-man body is evil and should be completely covered upor that sex is dirly. The human body is sacred and beau-tiful when understood in its proper context. Human inti-macy is also comforting and nofinal when confined tothe parameters set forth clearly by the Church and thecommon moralrty that used to prevail in Christian anddecent societ5r.

The clothes presented on the Web site that yousent me would be quite appropriate for Dr. Quinn theMedicine 'Woman. They were, indeed, stylish in thenineteenth cenfury. I doubt, however, that it is reallynecessW,today, to cover the ankles in order to be mod-estly and properly dressed. I think thatwomen with longhair (avoiding the unisex styles that, for the sake of con-venience, are so popular now), who wear stylish butconservative dresses, and who have an innocent interestin accentuating their feminini$ represent the beaufy andvariety with which God has endowed humankind. Theinnocent enjoyment of such beauty is normal. I amafraid that combat boots and fto*py, ugly clothes thatseem to be de rigueur among some Orthodoxtraditionalists, on the other hand, have little to do withtradition or Christianity. A woman can, again, have longhafu, wear modest clothes, and adorn herself moderatelywithout having to look as though she just parachutedout of the nineteenth century or just emerged from anAmish community in the Midwest *.*itrg clod-hoppers and carrying a pitchfork. Nor do I find womenwho look like marauders from some Amazon tribe per-sonally attractive.

Orthodox Christians and CtothingOrthodox spiritual Father to one of his flockwe should,r agree, urge and encourage orthodoxmen and women to dress modestly and to follow thesuggestions set out in Scripture and in the Canonicaland Patristic traditions of the Church. But we cannot domore than that. Christianrty is based on free will. Peoplehave the right to destroy their souls and to discount thetherapeutic customs and advice of the Church, if theywish. Motivated by love and concern for their souls, wecan warn them, chastise them, and criticize them forignoring the Church's guidance. But if they become an-W, question our motivations, and reject our overtures,we must evenfually keep our silence. Unlike fundamen-talist MosleffiS, we. do not have religious police inOrthodoxy. We do not, except in rare circumstances ofegregious behaviour, separate anyone from the Faithful.

Rather, we let the belligerent Christian separate himselffrom what we teach only by example and not by force.Having said this, I must addthat deliberute sexualprovocation by way of clothing and personal adorn-ment-which is a sign, in fact, of sexual aberration(even though this fact convicts most contemporary so-cieties of sexual maladjustment)-lies outside the do-main of the healthy views of the body and human inti-macy that I have described. The absolute defiance of theChurch's dress codes by women who refuse to ceasewearing pants, shorts, tight skirts and blouses, and skirtsslit up the side or back is absolutely inconsistent withChristian modesty and with the spirit of humilrty whichshould adorn a Christian. In the case of pants, somewomen are so possessed by the vulgar habit of wearinga kind of clothing that makes them look either ugly orprovocative, that they set aside logic and claim thattheyweaf such clothing for the sake of comfort or out ofpractical necessity. In fact, everyone knows that loose-fitting clothes, which are less revealing, are far morecomfortable. As for the argument on grounds of practi-cality, many Orthodox priests and monks (and not a fewnuns, in fact) have undertaken

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10This is an ancient advocacy in fact, &s old as Plato's ex-hortations to moderation in all things. Sexuality belongsin context, not only for the good Christim, but for thegood citizen and any psychologically-balanced andadaptive individual-in a context, in all three cases,which discourages public displays of mating behaviour,provocative dress, and behaviours and general comport-ment that are meant adventitiously and in an abnormalway to arouse carnal desire and the passions. If this sug-gests, again, that contemporary society is sexually andmorally sick, then we as Christians should heed whatwe see around us and be all the more vigilant to treatour passions, which we all have, with the curative meas-ures of the Church: modesty, moral uprightness, artd acoffection of our weaknesses in this sense.In the balance between what are essentially ex-treme and unhealthy sectarian views of dress and mod-ern ideas about proper dress and public behaviour thatare based on the exploitation of the passions and on sex-ual fuerration passing as noffnality, we find the Ortho-dox position. I do not believe that this position is repre-sented either by dress styles that were popular morethan a century ago or by styles of improper dress justi-fied on the grounds of convenience, comfort, and practi-cality. Nor is the Orthodox position one that can be ulti-mately enforced, except by love. And real love ceasesbeing love unless it finally relinquishes its hold and letspeople freely choose between therapy for the soul or thefolly of soul-destroying self-will and self-destruction. Iwould, therefore, very much discourage solving theproblem of modesty with the website that you identi-fied. The risk of misogyny, extremism, unthinking andrigid pietism, and fanaticism, if not outright sectarian-ism, is too great.Again, this is my own personal opinion, for whatit is worth. *****

Nicholas Stanosheck-the owner of the Web sitementioned in this letter-makes this clarffication con-cerning his Web site:In shopping at local clothes stores, I found thateven for girls of my daughter's young age were immod-

The Voiceest. Halter-tops, short-shorts and skirts and transparentclothes can be found for the youngest of girls. Of coursewe all heard how thongs were being made for and soldto girls as young as 7 last summer at the mall.In finding it hard to find good clothes, I searchedonline. I found that a number of places made clothes forthose wishing their children to have modest clothing.Most of them cater to girls, as it is easier to find modestclothes for boys. Pants that are not tight and shirts canbe found most anywhere.I do not think that female should always have towear bonnets like the Amish or anything of the sort. Iadded head covering sites, &s finding a good headscartfor wearing at church was tricky and many women Iknew wondered where to get the ones I bought for mydaughter.I do not agree with the philosophy bchind manyof the sites, but think that one should be able to findmodest clothes if one chooses to. In fact, I completelyagree with the personal opinion of your spiritual fatherwhere he says, A woman can, again, have long hair,wear modest clothes, and adorn herself moderatelywithout having to look as though she just parachutedout of the nineteenth century or just emerged from anAmish community in the Midwest wearing clod-hoppers and carrying a pitchfork. Nor do I find womenwho look like marauders from some Amazon tribe per-sonally attractive.

That's why I included a range of different sites Itinked to. on the banner of http:llstanosheck.c om/Modesty.html there is a girl with a long sleeved t-shirtand a ankle-length skirt and a headscarf. Its not 1800'sstyle, but something practical and modest one finds theladies at church wearing. The image is straight from oneof the sites I link to.So to summarize, I do not believe women shouldhave to dress like Muslims or the Amish, I am not try-ing to force women to dress like it was 100 years ogo,and am just trying to provide a service for those thatcannot find modest clothes locally. I hope this helpsalleviate anyone's concerns.