The first thing I would say is that it's time for Peter and Julianna to separate and go into separate corners.....Time to cool off a bit I think!!!! Sorry, but it's true.
Secondly, Julianna wrote.....
Altar servers are nice but not neccesary altar girls are modernist. Nuns in a convent is different. Using girls in a parish setting is wrong for numerous reasons
Altar servers have their function, whether it is performed by a boy, teenager, man or grandfather or for that matter a girl. They function in more ways than is always understood. They help the priest with many of the minor details that help him serve that service so beautifully. And they --as in the altar boys -- gain a tremendous amount from this serve to God. If you had read the posting you must have noticed that Fr andrew stated that girls were only used in those instances where no males --of any age-- were available to serve. He also stated that this practice was a long held Church Tradition. Hardly a "modernist" invention. The fact, that this is a little known practice, hardly makes it modernist. The Vladika mentioned was NOT a modernist, never was a modernist and was one of those "old school" bishops ---the strictest that I have ever known. So if he chose to use this practice when necessary, I hardly think that it was so wrong!
If this practice is wrong...kindly elaborate as to the incorrect nature. Why do you feel it is so wrong?
I feel that you are approaching this matter from that age old interdiction that Women are not allowed into the altar (Gasp!! God Forbid!! --Sorry I couldn't resist!). But the fact of the matter is that under certain conditions we are allowed into the altar. I remember as a young women feeling that this little bit of information made me feel a whole lot better about my position as a woman in the Church. I never served as an "altar girl", but the fact that I could have was very gratifying.
There is much within the faith and within the church structure that we do not know. Somethings having fallen out of practice, some that we have not learned or that we have forgotten. But this does not make them always wrong.