Christian Headcovering

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The Christian headcovering is a veiling worn by some Christian women. Some cover only in church or while praying; others cover their heads all the time. They reference 1 Corinthians 11 as the basis for their practice. Many Christians, however, see no need for women to wear a headcovering.

1 History of the Christian Headcovering
2 Reasons for the headcovering
3 Objections to the headcovering
4 References
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] History of the Christian Headcovering

1 Corinthians 11 contains the only reference to a headcovering in the New Testament. However, various Early Church Fathers, such as Hermas^[1], Clement of Alexandria^[2] and Tertullian^[3] mentioned headcoverings. Early Christian art shows women wearing headcoverings.^[4]

Through the ensuing centuries, it was common for a woman to wear a headcovering. The Catholic Church throughout history has required that women be veiled during liturgical services and visits to churches.^{[citation needed]} Katharina von Bora, Martin Luther’s wife and a former nun, wore a headcovering. Protestant theologians and founding fathers John Knox and John Calvin both called for women to wear a headcovering.^[5],^[6] Commentators such as Matthew Henry, A. R. Fausset and A. T. Robertson wrote that women should wear a headcovering.

Solemn Mass celebrated ca. 1946 in the Netherlands

During the 1900s, the headcovering gradually disappeared from many Protestant churches, which dropped their requirement that women cover their heads during the church service. The Roman Catholic Church omitted, in the 1983 Code of Canon Law, the requirement that it had introduced as a universal law for the Latin Rite of the Church in 1917 with canon 1262 of its first Code of Canon Law. This canon mandated that, in church, women should cover their heads and men should uncover theirs unless, in the latter case, approved customs of peoples were against it. It also declared it "desirable" that, in line with ancient practice, women should be separate from men in church. Though the canon only declared separation by sex to be desirable but mandated women's headcovering, the photograph here of Mass in the Netherlands in about 1946, two decades before the changes that followed the Second Vatican Council, shows that neither practice was everywhere and always observed in the period from 1917 to 1983.

In Western countries, where women no longer as a matter of course wear hats when going outdoors, most Latin Rite Catholic women do not wear veils or other head coverings in church, though most women still do in the Eastern Catholic Churches and, of course, in countries where a headcovering for women is customary even outside of church. Eastern Catholic bishops and priests on several occasions declared their desire that women wear headcoverings in church.^{[citation needed]} Canon 6 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law states that the 1917 Code has been abrogated.^[7] Though a head covering for women in church is accordingly no longer imposed by law, some Catholic authors have maintained that it is still required on several grounds, one of which is that they say this headcovering is a centennial and immemorial custom (cf. canon 5 of the Code of Canon Law).^[8] Traditionalist Catholics continue the use of Christian headcovering for women in church. The forms range from a mantilla to a hat or a simple headscarf.

A few Protestant and Anabaptist denominations still practice the headcovering, at least during services. Among them are the Mennonites, Plymouth Brethren and the stricter Dutch Reformed.

The Eastern Orthodox Churches, Oriental Orthodox non-Chalcedonian Churches and the Assyrian Church of the East absolutely require Christian women to cover their heads while assisting at liturgical services (be they outside or inside a church building) and also while praying privately inside a church.

[edit] Reasons for the headcovering

Those who practice headcovering call attention to the universal aspect of 1 Corinthians 11:2-16. They argue that since the passage mentions “every man” and “every woman,” as well as the universal order of creation, this passage must apply to all Christians, in all ages and in every continent. They hold that the Bible is not merely referring to hair, long hair, or submission, but rather a literal cloth headcovering.

[edit] Objections to the headcovering

Some Christians interpret the passage as a cultural mandate that was only for the first-century Corinthian church. Therefore, they say, women no longer need to cover their heads. Other Christians believe that long hair is the headcovering. Still others believe that a woman’s husband is her covering. Yet another view, propagated by feminist Katharine Bushnell, holds that 1 Corinthians 11 itself even teaches that women should not cover their heads at all.

[edit] References

^ Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume Two, Book One, Part Three, Chapter Two
^ Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume Two, Book Five, Part 13, Chapter 11
^ Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume Four, Book One, Part Three — On the Veiling of Virgins
^ Let Her Be Veiled, pp. 51-58. Tom Shank, ed. (Eureka, MT: Torch Publications, 1988)
^ John Knox, "The First Blast Of The Trumpet Against The Monstrous Regiment Of Women", Works of John Knox, David Laing, ed. (Edinburgh: Printed for the Bannatyne Club), IV:377
^ Seth Skolnitsky, trans., Men, Women and Order in the Church: Three Sermons by John Calvin (Dallas, TX: Presbyterian Heritage Publications, 1992), pp. 12,13.
^ Thus the automatic excommunication imposed by canon 2335 of the 1917 Code on those who joined freemasonry was abolished by its omission in the corresponding canon 1374 of the 1983 Code. (Both Codes only implicitly declare it wrong to join associations of that kind: what has been abolished is only the earlier specific ecclesiastical penalty for doing so.)
^ Still Binding? The Veiling of Women and Meatless Fridays