Gender Differences and the Making of Liturgical History: Lifting a Veil on Liturgy's Past (Liturgy Worship and Society Series)

About this book

Mapping uncharted territory in the study of liturgys past this book offers a history to contemporary questions around gender and liturgical life. Teresa Berger looks at liturgys past through the lens of gender history understood as attending not only to the historically prominent binary of "men" and "women" but to all gender identities including inter-sexed persons ascetic virgins eunuchs and priestly men. Demonstrating what a gender-attentive inquiry is able to achieve Berger explores both traditional fundamentals such as liturgical space and eucharistic practice and also new ways of studying the past for example by asking about the developing link between liturgical presiding and priestly masculinity. Drawing on historical case studies and focusing particularly on the early centuries of Christian worship this book ultimately aims at the present by lifting a veil on liturgys past to allow for a richly diverse notion of gender differences as these continue to shape liturgical life.