Femeia creștină - „lauda măririi harului” în Biserică și în viața socială
The Christian Woman — “A Praise of the Greatness of Grace” in the Church and in Social Life

Summary/Abstract: In pre-Christian ancient Greco-Roman society, women were considered by nature inferior to men, to the extent that within the family, a husband could exercise the power of life and death over his wife and could repudiate her at will… Starting from monotheism, which ensures the unity between man and woman on the basis of their divine filiation—as bearers of the image of God inscribed in their being—Christianity transforms the value system, promoting equality between them given their shared nature and their common calling to attain likeness to God: their Creator, Provider, Savior, and Sanctifier through the one and same grace of the Holy Spirit. By proclaiming the universality of salvation through grace, both men and women become brothers and sisters in Christ for the Christian community, thus opening the prospect of universal brotherhood… This new attitude toward women will have a decisive influence on social life, in the sense that while it cannot officially change the existing social order; by changing the relationships between men and women, the Gospel will set in motion a new mindset, a new behavior, and a new moral attitude of men toward women, offering Christian rulers the opportunity to enact legislation capable of emancipating women from their millennia-old yoke… On the other hand, by elevating marriage through the grace of the Holy Spirit to the level of a holy sacrament in Christ and in the Church, the relationship between man and woman will be sanctified through the unity and indissolubility of the family, enabling spouses to impart to one another the holiness of their lives. At the same time, women will be able to participate in the life of grace within the Church, independent of men, forming Christian communities in which holiness was cultivated at the highest level through the virtue of virginity and chastity. Then, having been deemed worthy by the deifying grace to bear witness to her faith at the cost of her own life during persecutions, she immortalized her name in the calendar of Christian saints, so that she might remain throughout the ages as one who prays to God for the faithful.

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