In recent years, some have charged that the role of women in the early church was glossed over or, even worse, deliberately suppressed. The best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code is a case in point.
Early Church Mothers?
A mosaic of martyrs Perpetua and Felicity adorns a chapel wall in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington. The early ‘Church Mothers’ – like the Church Fathers of whom we’ve heard so much – were influential in the first few centuries of our Christian development.