Editing Gender role (section)

===Christianity===
{{Further|Gender roles in Christianity|Christian views on marriage|Sex and gender roles in the Catholic Church}}
[[File:Cranach the Younger, Lucas - Christ and the adulteress.jpg|thumb|''Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery'' [[Hermitage Museum]], Russia]]
The roles of [[women in Christianity]] can vary considerably today (as they have varied historically since the first century church). This is especially true in marriage and in formal ministry positions within certain Christian denominations, churches, and [[parachurch organizations]].

Many leadership roles in the organized church have been restricted to males. In the Roman Catholic and [[Eastern Orthodox]] churches, only men may serve as priests or deacons, and in senior leadership positions such as [[pope]], [[patriarch]], and [[bishop]]. Women may serve as [[abbess]]es. Some mainstream [[Protestant]] denominations are beginning to relax their longstanding constraints on ordaining women to be ministers, though some large groups are tightening their constraints in reaction.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Masci |first=David |title=The divide over ordaining women |url=https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2014/09/09/the-divide-over-ordaining-women/ |access-date=2024-03-30 |website=Pew Research Center |date=9 September 2014 |language=en-US}}</ref> Many subsets of the [[Charismatic]] and [[Pentecostal]] movements have embraced the ordination of women since their founding.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Langford |first=Joy |date=2017 |title=Feminism and Leadership in the Pentecostal Movement |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0966735017714402 |journal=Feminist Theology |language=en |volume=26 |issue=1 |pages=69–79 |doi=10.1177/0966735017714402 |issn=0966-7350}}</ref>

Christian "[[saint]]s", persons of exceptional holiness of life having attained the [[beatific vision]] ([[heaven]]), can include female saints.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Yarrow |first=Simon |url=https://doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199676514.001.0001 |title=Saints: A Very Short Introduction |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2018 |isbn=978-0-19-178130-8 |language=en |chapter=Gendering the saints |doi=10.1093/actrade/9780199676514.003.0005 |chapter-url=https://doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199676514.003.0005}}</ref> Most prominent is [[Mary, mother of Jesus]] who is highly revered throughout Christianity, particularly in the Catholic and Orthodox churches where she is considered the "[[Theotokos]]", i.e. "Mother of God". Women prominent in Christianity have included contemporaries of Jesus, subsequent theologians, abbesses, mystics, [[doctors of the church]], founders of religious orders, military leaders, monarchs and martyrs, evidencing the variety of roles played by women within the life of Christianity. [[Paul the Apostle and women|Paul the Apostle]] held women in high regard and worthy of prominent positions in the church, though he was careful not to encourage disregard for the [[New Testament household codes]], also known as New Testament Domestic Codes or ''Haustafelen'', of [[Greco-Roman world|Greco-Roman law]] in the first century.