Copyright ©2011 by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute
Distributed under an Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License.
Syriac Christianity from the beginning allotted women important positions as
widows, deaconesses, and consecrated virgins; these roles were canonically
named, ecclesiastically supervised, and granted significant responsibilities
by the 3rd cent. Syriac churches also developed distinctive roles for women
that differed from other Christian areas. Notable was the office of
Covenanter, or Sons and Daughters of the Covenant (bnay and bnāt qyāmā; see
bnay qyāmā
), which appears during the 3rd cent. and continues at
least into the 10th in both W.- and E.-Syr. churches. These were men and
women who had taken vows of celibacy and simplicity, working in the service
of the local bp. The rise of institutionalized monasticism in the 4th cent. did not eclipse their work. For the
women, this office included the crucial task of singing doctrinal hymns (madrāše) in the liturgy of the civic churches. Later
tradition ascribes the establishment of these women’s choirs to
No known Syriac text written by a woman survives until modern times, although
the large corpus of anonymous Syriac hymnography and hagiography may include women’s contributions. Important Syriac
women saints, both historical and legendary, gained renown in the Greek and
Latin churches and sometimes beyond: Pelagia the Harlot of
Additionally, ancient Syriac tradition produced striking feminine imagery for
the divine, especially for the Holy Spirit (following grammar: ruḥā ‘spirit’, being a feminine noun in Syriac).
Perhaps related, devotion to the Virgin
Female monasticism flourished in late antique Syriac Christianity, with an apparent encouragement of women’s literacy and learning. These declined quickly under Islamic domination, until modern times. Already in the early modern period, there is evidence of women’s leadership and patronage of religious learning in E.-Syr. communities. The holy woman Hindiyya, an 18th cent. Maronite nun in Lebanon, produced lengthy mystical writings in Arabic; the 20th cent. brought the renewal of Syriac women’s monastic communities in Turkey, Syria, and Iraq. In the 21st cent., both E.- and W.-Syr. women’s choirs have undergone significant revival, with enhanced liturgical roles and, in Europe and Sweden, annual competitions and celebrations of their chanting.