Tag Archives: Diaconate

Deaconesses: An Orthodox Institution Untheologically Blocked

by Petros Vassiliadis

Orans of Kyiv

At the initiative of the Center of Ecumenical, Missiological and Environmental Studies “Metropolitan Panteleimon Papageorgiou” (CEMES), an International Scientific Symposium on “Deaconesses. Past-Present-Future” was organized in Thessaloniki (1/31-2/2, 2020) at the International Hellenic University (IHU), to which its Inter-Orthodox English-speaking Post-graduate Program “Orthodox Ecumenical Theology” belongs.

In addition to ΙΗU, 4 other institutions were registered as co-organizers: The Orthodox Christian Studies Center of Fordham University, St. Philaret’s Christian Orthodox Institute of Moscow, the Orthodox Academy of Crete, and Saint Phoebe Center of Deaconess.

The symposium focused on the Rejuvenation of the Order of Deaconesses with a multi-layer (biblical, liturgical, Patristic, archeological, canonical, theological, and historical) analysis, but also with a critical theological assessment of the recent developments in the Orthodox and other churches.

Extremely encouraging were the Messages sent by the Ecumenical Patriarch, the Patriarch of Alexandria, and the Archbishop of Athens. Continue reading

Women’s Gifts and the Diaconate

by Carrie Frederick Frost  |  ελληνικά

The reinstitution of the ordained female diaconate in the Orthodox Church today would result in a much-needed and transformative outpouring of women’s gifts into the Church and into the world.

In order to appreciate the positive potential of the female diaconate, we must understand the absolute parity of women and men in the eyes of the Orthodox Church. The Church has always understood men and women to be equally created in the image and likeness of God, even if its broader cultural surrounding was highly patriarchal.  As such, statements like this from Saint Basil were nothing short of radical:  “The natures are alike of equal honor, the virtues are equal, the struggle equal, the judgment alike” (On the Human Condition). This thinking is representative of early Church Fathers, including Gregory of Nazianzus and Clement of Alexandria, and amounts to a rejection of any hierarchical understanding of the relationship between men and women in the Roman world. Indeed, this understanding of women and men as equal in their creation by God is one of Christianity’s great gifts to the world. Continue Reading…

A Renewed Diaconate Completes the Church

by Rev. Archdeacon John Chryssavgis  |  ελληνικά  |  ру́сский

In recent centuries, the diaconate has only enjoyed a symbolical or transitional role in the church. Parish clergy are ordained to the priesthood after serving only briefly as deacons. It is as if they are expected to “move on!” or “move up!” The diaconate has been reduced to little more than a preparation or stepping-stone for the priesthood or episcopate. The latter two stages are often considered more significant for the ordained ministry, whereas the diaconate resembles a kind of sub-priesthood, rarely perceived as a lifelong or permanent office.

But this was not always the case—together with bishop and presbyters, deacons were regarded by Ignatius of Antioch toward the end of the first century as an essential part of the structure of the church, which realizes its unity—most completely and comprehensively—when the community is “with the bishop and the presbyters and the deacons who are with the bishop . . . Without these,” St. Ignatius adds, “[the community] cannot be called a church” (Letter to the Trallians).

St. John Chrysostom reminds us of how the early church perceived deacons when he remarks, “even bishops are called deacons” (Homilies on Philippians 1). Indeed, in the time of the apostles, there is no implication or indication that deacons were a condition or requirement for elevation to priesthood. This is why it is my conviction that there can be no clear understanding of the priesthood—or even of the episcopate—unless we first properly apprehend and appreciate the diaconate in and of itself. Continue Reading…

Bishops and Synods: Testing the Spirits

by Rev. Deacon Nicholas Denysenko  |  ελληνικά

In modernity and postmodernity, bishops and synods have taken varying approaches to testing the spirits and ascertaining what is needed for the renewal of pastoral ministry. The task engaged by the participants in the symposium hosted by the St. Phoebe Center for the Deaconess on October 6-7, 2017, was to consider how the Church might renew the order of the diaconate. My lecture focused on the work of the Moscow Council of 1917-18, especially the conciliar engagement of a process for restoring the patriarchate. I proposed the council’s restoration of the patriarchate offers a pattern for the contemporary discussion of renewing the diaconate, since these are ministries performed by Church orders. Here are three approaches to ministerial renewal from the Moscow Council that can be applied today to the questions posed to bishops and synods as they deliberate the matter of renewing the diaconate: Continue Reading…