Fr. Frizzell [TLC, Oct. 4], commenting on the editorial "Conscience Protected," asserts that the Episcopal Church has a doctrine about the ordination of women to holy orders. For more than 20 years, I have been asking clergy and laity to define that doctrine and, to date, have gotten no answers.

It seems to me impossible to require by canon law "belief in" or "assent to" that which has not been theologically defined. General Convention changed a few words in the canons governing ordination but did not provide a theological basis for the changes.

I entered seminary in 1956 to discern if my felt call to full-time Christian service entailed ordination in the Methodist Church, and I soon discovered that God had not called me to preach. Since the sermon is the centerpiece of Sunday worship in the Methodist Church, it was clear I wasn't being called to exercise ordained ministry. After marrying a candidate for holy orders in the Episcopal Church, I took confirmation classes and learned the doctrinal/theological basis for not ordaining women. At the same time, I also learned why I had to be re-confirmed as a member of that branch of Christ's body called the Episcopal Church.

Even after reading Fr. Frizzell's letter, I find that I am still waiting to be given a theological basis for ceasing to affirm what I was taught to affirm in 1960, in order to become a member of a local Episcopal congregation.

Odessa S. Elliott

The Bronx, N.Y.