A Heroine for the Greek Catholic Church: Susanna, the First Female Type of Christ

Abstract

The only woman in the Bible whose education is described is Susanna, the heroine of the Book of Daniel. This learned woman risked her life to resist corruption when her people were subject to foreign rule. Her courage and success make her a fitting model for the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, which has itself suffered under foreign rule. Moreover, she is the first woman Christians interpreted as prefiguring Christ himself in his Passion. This is vividly expressed through the synoptic Gospels. Church Fathers including Ambrose, Maximus of Turin, and Augustine preached on her as foreshadowing the Lord in his arrest in a garden and in his trial by the “Elders of the people”, and therefore she was frequently depicted as a type of Christ in early Christian and medieval art. In Greek this tradition is attested by a single liturgical play, attributed to John of Damascus. In the East, Jephthah’s daughter and the woman in the parable who finds the lost drachma are well documented as types of Christ. It would be fitting if now, in the new millennium, Eastern homilies would treat Susanna also as prefiguring the Lord and exemplifying that women, equally with men, are called to theosis.