orn go all the way to the ankles. Only women wore these garments, while men's garments only came down to their calves.If these frescos are, in fact, women, we should not be surprised. Much of history also points to women being priests in the early church. Before the Edict of Constantine in 313 AD, Christians were forced to worship in the privacy of their homes. Women were the ones that ran things in the home. They organized the dinner and entertained the guests, and it would only have been natural for them to celebrate mass as well. It wasn't until after Constantine made it possible for Christians to practice in public, that Christians had the privilege of worshipping in basilicas. Once Christianity was the official religion under Constantine, Christians had to adapt to the culture around them and make the role of the celebrant a male role. Soon after, four councils in one hundred years banned the ordination of women. This is significant because if women were not being ordained priests already, the councils would not have to ban it so many times. This is not the only proof, however. In a church in Rome, a mosaic behind the alter depicts four women. One of these women has a rectangular halo that sets her apart from the rest and has the words "Theodora Episcopa" written next to her. Theodora would be her name and Episcopa translates into bishop. Not far from there a tomb was found with the title Letapresbiteressa on it. Leta is a feminine name, and if she were a priest, as the title would suggest, she would have been the first woman priest. While the debate will undoubtedly go on for a long time to come, the most obvious explanation for these findings is that women really were priests. While we can always find complex and extravagant explanations for any argument, the simplest explanation is almost always true. ...
