St. Phoebe Center for the Deaconess

Women’s Gifts and the Diaconate

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by Carrie Frederick Frost

originally posted on Public Orthodoxy

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.

To be sure, this does not mean that all human life has been experienced in this way; indeed, the subjugation of women (at least within marriage) was part of the Fall (“[Your husband] shall rule over you” Genesis 3:16). We as Orthodox, however, do not enshrine any of the other characteristics of our fallen state outlined in Genesis as part of a sanctified and unquestioned order of things—difficult labor, our inclination toward violence, pain during childbirth, etc.—instead, we understand all of these conditions as worthy of our efforts to mitigate and overcome and that will ultimately be overcome.

Also, to be sure, this does not mean that all Christians throughout history embraced this understanding. For example, the early Church acquiesced to Roman norms of a patrician man’s authority in the domain of his household after it transitioned from a community that expected an imminent second coming to a community that was learning how to self-perpetuate. There is also no shortage of memorable misogynistic quips from famous rigorists, like Tertullian, who claimed, “Woman is a temple built over a sewer.”

There is nothing disrespectful to the Church in acknowledging that it has an imperfect historical record on this issue. In fact, it is our responsibility as Christians to lovingly mend any tears in the fabric of the Church’s earthly presence. Most importantly, these ideas have never been considered to be the basis for an Orthodox understanding of the essence of women and man, not in their own time nor our own.

The weight of our tradition reflects the sentiment expressed above by St. Basil: that women and men are equal, a truth which, of course, was illustrated by Jesus Christ himself. He accorded respect and dignity to women at every turn as recorded in the Gospels, even in the most unlikely of circumstances. There may be no greater affirmation of the respect, dignity, and equality of women with men that the fact that it was his women friends to whom he first appeared as the risen Christ.

And here is the second thing that must be understood in order to appreciate the possibility of the female diaconate for the Church today: Even within the context of the Church’s conviction of the essential equality of women and men, there is no sense that the Church understands women and men to be perfectly equivalent. Instead, there has always been an understanding and appreciation for the ways in which the human experience is lived out differently between women and men; the incarnational reality of women and men is not the same. This is reflected in the lives of the saints, in the marriage rite, in the iconography of the Church, the hymnography of the Church, and so on.

When we fully appreciate the fundamental parity between women and men, it becomes clear that any objection to the female diaconate based on women being subordinate to men holds no weight in the Orthodox context. And when we fully appreciate the longstanding acknowledgement of women and men’s different lived experiences and perspectives—their different incarnational realities—we also appreciate that men and women have different gifts to offer the Church.

In this light, the fading away of the female diaconate in the late Byzantine era for what looks to be complex historical reasons can only be understood as a tragedy. With an isolated exception here and there, for something like eight hundred years the Church has not benefited from women’s gifts offered as deaconesses. Of course, women have contributed to the life of the Church in innumerable ways in every historical and temporal context, but the loss of this sort of ordained ministry—which has the support, the protection, and oversight, and the authority of the Church—has deprived the Church of the experiences, perspectives, and unique gifts of generations of its faithful women.

An aside: Considering that the female diaconate has sound historical precedence and theological underpinnings, that the same cannot be said for the female priesthood, and that there is effectively no movement in the Orthodox Church today to even consider—much less push for—the female priesthood, we ought to be able to consider the female diaconate on its own merits.

Particular to the female diaconate: The Church needs its women’s gifts. It needs them by virtue of their baptism; simply on the basis of the unique gifts each human person has to offer. It also needs them because women have a different lived experience than men, a different incarnational reality than men, and therefore have different gifts to offer the Church as women. Women or men can offer the expertise of chaplains, administrators, pastoral counselors, but only women can offer the gifts garnered from their incarnational reality as women.

Any resistance to the female diaconate based on the concern that its effect would be to erase differences between women and men is unfounded. Instead, the female diaconate would honor the differences in the incarnational reality of women, and would allow the Church to benefit from these differences. In fact, refusing to consider the female diaconate out of fear of the Church succumbing to trends in the larger society around us that seek to elide any differences between women and men is actually, and ironically, a capitulation to society’s trends.

Women need women’s gifts; they need woman-to-woman ministry. This is not an antiquated idea that we here in enlightened America have outgrown. There is a reason I belong to an all-woman book group. There is wisdom behind the decision of the hospice where I volunteer to pair female respite caregivers with female patients (and male respite caregivers with male patients). There are times when a woman needs to be ministered to by another woman. And, yes, this happens informally in parishes (and book groups), but the good that could be done would be a hundredfold more if there were theologically and pastorally trained women ordained as deaconesses, ready to minister to other women, with the oversight, support, and authority of the Church.

The whole Church—not only women—needs women’s gifts. Women have a different lived experience of sexual abuse and assault, from which the whole Church would benefit. Women have a different perspective on authority, its judicious use, its squandering, its misuse, its abuse, from which the whole Church would benefit. Women have a different view of childrearing, marriage, and family life, from which the whole Church would benefit—and so on. And, again, yes, some of these gifts are already being shared with the Church here in the twenty-first century—with women on now on parish councils, teaching in seminaries, and so on—but this cannot compare to the ways in which women’s gifts would be truly infused into the life of the Church if women were ordained to the diaconate, and thus had the sacramental blessing of this ministry. As I understand it, the recognition of both the need for woman-to-woman ministry and the ways in which women’s gifts benefit the entire Church prompted the Patriarch of Alexandria to reinstitute the order of deaconesses in Africa last year.

I truly believe that the reinstitution of the ordained female diaconate in the other autocephalous Orthodox churches would do the opposite of undermining the differences between women and men; that it would instead allow the gifts of women to more fully be given to the Church and the world; that these gifts would be honored, celebrated, and realized in new, wonderful, and unanticipated ways; and that the female diaconate would prompt an effloresce of healing, well-being, flourishing, and hope in the life of my beloved Orthodox Church today.

Carrie Frederick Frost, PhD is a scholar of Orthodox theology, Professor of Theology at Saint Sophia Ukrainian Orthodox Seminary, and a Board Member of Saint Phoebe Center for the Deaconess.

Public Orthodoxy seeks to promote conversation by providing a forum for diverse perspectives on contemporary issues related to Orthodox Christianity. The positions expressed in this essay are solely the author’s and do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Orthodox Christian Studies Center.

St. Phoebe Center for the Deaconess

Orthodox move for women deacons is ‘revitalization’ not ‘innovation’

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Appearing in the National Catholic Reporter

Nov 30, 2017
by James Dearie

Orthodox liturgical theologians are voicing support for the decision of Patriarch Theodoros II and the Greek Orthodox Holy Synod of the Patriarchate of Alexandria to reinstate the order of deaconesses.

“We respectfully support the decision of the Patriarchate of Alexandria to restore the female diaconate, thus giving flesh to an idea that has been discussed and studied by pastors and theologians for decades,” nine theologians from theology schools and seminaries of the United States and Greece said in a statement dated Oct. 31.

The reinstitution of the female diaconate does not constitute an innovation, as some would have us believe,” the theologians said, “but the revitalization of a once functional, vibrant, and effectual ministry,” the theologians said.

Theodoros, pope and patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa, consecrated five women to the diaconate last February in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, primarily to assist in missionary churches.

Modern Orthodox scholarship acknowledges the existence of a female diaconate in the early church, with many tracing it back to a woman named Phoebe mentioned by the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans. However, “it really fell out of existence in the late Byzantine period,” said Carrie Frederick Frost, an Orthodox theologian who sits on the board of the St. Phoebe Center for the Deaconess, an organization that provides education about and promotes the female diaconate in the Orthodox Church.

“Every now and again there has been one … but, for the most part, the past few hundred years have not seen deaconesses,” Frost told NCR in a Nov. 20 interview.

For several decades, Orthodox patriarchs have discussed the possibility of bringing the order back. A 1988 Pan-Orthodox Consultation at Rhodes, Greece, produced the document “The Place of Women in the Orthodox Church,” which stated that the “apostolic order of deaconesses should be revived.”

Little had been done to advance the cause until Theodoros’ surprise move earlier this year.

Reports indicate, however, that Theodoros did not ordain the women in the traditional manner, with the laying of hands at the altar, but “consecrated” them on the side.

Frost says that the ceremony appeared to be a “blending” of the ordination of deacons and the blessing of those entering the subdiaconate, the highest minor order in the Orthodox Church, possibly to deflect pressure from parts of the church that are resistant to the idea of conferring major orders on women.

“There’s an allegiance to tradition that sometimes gets lived out as resistance to change,” Frost said. Many Orthodox are wary of breaking with tradition, she said, and see the decline in other churches’ membership as evidence that the way of the past is the way of the future for the Orthodox Church.

“They see [the female diaconate] as a slippery slope,” she said. “It’s a fear about capitulating to what is perceived to be the secular world at large, in that doing things differently in the Orthodox Church, even if it were a return to something that was historically the case, like the female diaconate, that that would be a capitulation to secular pressures about modernity and change.”

For this reason, the Patriarchate of Alexandria’s decision could have a large impact. Orthodox bishops do not answer directly to a pope or head patriarch, and could technically start ordaining women as deacons, but probably will not as long as it appears that such a move would cause conflict. In a church very concerned with precedent, the patriarchate “really gave us an example of a local church … making that decision internally,” said Frost.

Ultimately, she said, the question of female deacons is a question of the needs of the modern church, many of which she believes female deacons could help meet, citing ministry to women as an important example.
Related: Orthodox Church debate over women deacons moves one step closer to reality

“I don’t want to pigeonhole them into woman-to-woman ministry, but I think that is something they would give the church that the church does not have right now,” Frost said.

She also notes that in the case of the Patriarchate of Alexandria, the women were chosen “to help with missionary work. The church is growing gangbusters in Africa right now; there aren’t enough priests, there aren’t enough people on the ground … and they desire to deputize these women to teach, catechize and lead services.”

The revitalization of a female order of deacons in the Orthodox Church could influence the work of Pope Francis’ commission studying the possibility of female deacons in the Roman Catholic Church, which has traditionally recognized the validity of Orthodox sacraments.

“I’m sure that there’s a whole lot of conversation going on in the Holy See right now with regard to Catholic-Orthodox relations on this question,” William Ditewig, a theologian, Catholic deacon and former head of the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat for the Diaconate, told NCR.

While both churches are considering the possibility of women in the diaconate, the move in the Orthodox Church should not be seen as a step toward women in the priesthood. “There’s no movement [in favor of female priestly ordination],” Frost said of the Orthodox Church.

“In the Orthodox Church, the diaconate is a ministry on a different level than that of bishops and [priests],” Orthodox Fr. Steven Tsichlis told NCR. “One can be ordained to the diaconate and remain a deacon for one’s entire life; the diaconate should not be seen merely as a step to the priesthood and episcopacy in Orthodoxy — although it sometimes is today.”

“It’s about the vocation,” said Ditewig. The diaconate “is not a lower-case priesthood. This is a vocation in its own right.”

https://www.ncronline.org/news/theology/orthodox-move-women-deacons-called-revitalization-not-innovation

St. Phoebe Center for the Deaconess

Deaconess Presentation Made to Ecumenism Metro Chicago

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St. Phoebe Center Board Member Helen Theodoropoulos recently made a presentation on the deaconess to Ecumenism Metro Chicago (EMC).  Formerly known as The Ecumenical Millennium Committee, EMC was formed in 1999 to promote and to pray for a more ecumenical millennium. It is currently comprised of 20 judicatories or communions in addition to the Greater Chicago Broadcast Ministries organization.

Nearly a dozen officers from the various Christian communities attended, including the director of the education program for Roman Catholic deacons. “They were very supportive,” Helen said, also noting that attendees requested a copy of her PowerPoint presentation.

Visit the Ecumenism Metro Chicago Facebook page here:
https://www.facebook.com/ecumenismmetrochicago/

St. Phoebe Center for the Deaconess

“Narthex of the Deaconesses in the Hagia Sophia”

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This paper by Neil K. Moran explores the ceiling rings in the western end of the north aisle in the Hagia Sophia, revealing a rectangular space delineated by curtain rings, and proposing that the southeast corner of the church was assigned to forty deaconesses.  An analysis of the music sources in which the texts are fully written out suggests that the deaconesses took part in the procession of the Great Entrance as well as in rituals in front of the ambo. Read the article.

 

 

St. Phoebe Center for the Deaconess

Chicago Regional Presentation: “The Deaconess in the Orthodox Church”

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A regional presentation was made at Saints Peter and Paul Orthodox Church in Glenview, Illinois by St. Phoebe Center Board Member Dr. Helen Creticos Theodoropoulos, April 5, 2017 as part of the parish’s 2017 Lenten Lecture Series.

In spite of the bad weather, approximately 40 people attended the presentation, and later commented that not only did they learn a great deal about the ancient role of the deaconess, but were “most amazed” with the history of women in the Church.

Access the recorded presentation here.
Access the PDF PowerPoint here.

If you are interested in hosting a regional presentation in your area, please contact us at stphoebecenter at gmail dot com.

St. Phoebe Center for the Deaconess

Shared Ministry and Divine Grace: Restoring the Diaconate in Orthodoxy

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by Rev. Dr. Nicholas Denysenko

The Orthodox world is buzzing with the recent news report on the ordination of deaconesses in the Patriarchate of Alexandria. To the best of our knowledge, the ordination occurred after the Divine Liturgy in the nave of the temple, and appears to resemble the rite used to ordain subdeacons. This rite includes the presentation of the orarion, handlaying, a prayer, and the washing of the bishop’s hands. The reports do not offer details on the prayer said by the Patriarch. It seems that the Patriarch did not use the Byzantine Rite for the ordination of a deaconess, which takes place at the end of the anaphora (before the deacon intones the litany before the Lord’s Prayer, “Having remembered all the saints”), in the altar, and includes the deaconesses receiving Communion with the other clergy in the altar, according to order. While Patriarch Theodoros II appeared to use the rite for the ordination of subdeacons, the Patriarchate of Alexandria is referring to these newly-ordained women as deaconesses, and has appointed them to perform crucial sacramental and catechetical ministries as part of the Patriarchate’s missionary work.

The ordination of these five deaconesses in Alexandria marks a turning point in the discussion about the order of deaconess within the Orthodox Church. To date, the restoration of the female diaconate has been limited to discussion, deliberation, and study – not to mention heated debate. With this ordination, we now have a historical episode of ordination and appointment to ministry, a pattern for what the female diaconate could become. Will the Alexandrian ordination become the new rite for the order of deaconess, or will the Church dust off the Byzantine rite of the ordination of a deaconess? What other ministries might the deaconesses execute? We do not know the answers to these questions. We do know that the debate on the female diaconate is going to intensify.

As part of an ongoing research project, I’ve been asking Orthodox lay women and men for their opinions about the restoration of the order of deaconess. The responses seem to fit the positions presented by ideologues in the debate. Some people argue that restoring the order of deaconess is a legitimate application of ressourcement, of drawing upon our liturgical and ecclesiological history to appoint ministers who contribute to the building up of the body of Christ through particular gifts. Others depict the attempt to restore the deaconess as a trojan horse strategy to inject secular egalitarian values into the Church’s political theology. Others are unsure: one lay woman remarked that Orthodoxy “has the Panagia, and the Greek Orthodox Church has the Philoptochos Society – women essentially run the Church – why do we need a female diaconate?”

In reflecting on these responses, I was struck by the impression that very few people asked how the ministry of the deaconess would complement the current work done by bishops, presbyters, and deacons.

An honest appraisal of the orders of our Church demonstrates a reality: we are a presbyteral Church. For the vast majority of Orthodox Christians, the experience of Church ministry begins and ends with the priest. This experience might have diverse dimensions in various Orthodox Churches, especially those with deacons or in the proximity of a monastery, but the fact remains that the priest is essentially a “one-man band” in the Church. The priest presides at all liturgical offices; the priest anoints the sick and brings them Communion; the priest offers catechesis and preaches; the priest hears confessions and imparts spiritual direction; the priest functions as the local expert on Orthodoxy. The laity are charged with leading liturgical singing, taking care of the Church building, and handling financial issues, and in situations where the laity or a parish deacon exercise ministry, it occurs only under the supervision and with the blessing of the priest.

Many of the priests I have come to know over the years have expressed frustration on the absence of assistance in parish ministry. Most priests long for an associate or assistant priest; others want a deacon; some have taken the healthy step of sharing their ministry with the laity, by deputizing lay women and men to visit the sick in the hospital and pray with them, and blessing laity to pray the Liturgy of the Hours without a priest. Even rectors of small parishes feel strained, especially when they have other employment obligations to satisfy the daily needs of their families.

The Orthodox Church is a Church of orders: our body of Christ has the orders of laity, episcopate, priesthood, and diaconate. Each order has its own distinct ministry designed to contribute to the building up of the communion of the Holy Spirit. A significant feature of the rites of ordination to the order of bishop, priest, deacon, and deaconess – but not subdeacon – is the ancient “Divine Grace” formula: “The Divine Grace, which always heals that which is inform and supplies what is lacking, appoints the [designated order] N., beloved by God, as [designated order]. Let us pray therefore that the grace of the Holy Spirit may come upon him/her” (translation, adapted from Paul Bradshaw, Ordination Rites of the Ancient Churches of East and West [Pueblo, 1990], 133).  The presiding bishop calls upon the “Divine grace” to supply what is lacking, a reference to God appointing this particular minister to work in the Lord’s vineyard. The Divine Grace has always supplied men and women to “supply what is lacking” in the Church.

Something is lacking in Orthodox pastoral ministry: there is a dire need for the Church to appeal to God to supply people who can fill that which is “lacking” in the life of the Church, because priests cannot do it all. For centuries, the Church has depended almost solely on the work of the priests. I do not mean to dismiss the life-giving contributions made by bishops and deacons in the Church; my message is an appeal for all who are invested in ecclesiology, mission, and the question of the female diaconate to acknowledge the proverbial “elephant in the room.” How much more blood might be given to the Church were we to expand the diaconal ministry beyond liturgical performance, aesthetically-pleasing as it is?

The Patriarchate of Alexandria appears to be responding to pastoral needs in the life of the Church through action. Their example indicates that building up the body of Christ supersedes our ideological debates about gender and power – the world needs people who are willing to bear Christ’s Divine Grace to them by offering their particular gifts to the Church, to supply that which is lacking. The debate on the need for a female diaconate is sure to continue. For those of us willing to continue the debate, it is essential that we assess all of the orders of the Church and imagine how they might work together so that each order – laity, episcopate, priesthood, and diaconate – is truly working with the others to be the body of Christ. If we want this body of Christ to be healthy, and to be animated in working for the life of the world by the grace of God, the time has arrived for us to be honest about how the parts of the body we do not exercise enough might be rehabilitated and strengthened so that the body does not depend solely on priests. The life of the Church does not depend on ideological absolutism: it depends on the offerings of Christ as the head together with the rest of the Church.

Nicholas Denysenko is Associate Professor of Theological Studies and Director of the Huffington Ecumenical Institute at Loyola Marymount University. He is an ordained deacon of the Orthodox Church in America. He is scheduled to speak at the St. Phoebe Conference “Renewing the Male and Female Diaconate in the Orthodox Church” October 6-7, 2017 in Irvine, California.

St. Phoebe Center for the Deaconess

Orthodoxy, African Deaconesses, and Missed Opportunities

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by Kerry San Chirico

The headline from the official news agency of the Romanian Patriarchate read, “Patriarch Theodoros II of Alexandria performs first consecration of deaconesses.” There were mostly heartened and hopeful responses on my Facebook feed. I “liked” the page in the formal if shallow Facebook sense. As such news inevitably takes time to digest, those with keen eyes began to weigh in. “This is not an ordination but a consecration,” one scholar reminded us, noting critical differences between the words cheiriothesia (blessing) and and cheirotonia (ordination). Another pointed out that, given the photographic evidence, this rite was more akin to ordination of a subdeacon, a minor order. Was this then a minor occurrence? Some might wish that.

The whole thing took me back to days of the Soviet Union, when Western observers were forced to determine who was out of the capricious Soviet inner circle solely by looking at photos of waving Politburo members at the annual May Day parade. And this was amusing because we now live in the 21st century, and it’s not as though this liturgy was occurring in North Korea. I began to wonder, Wouldn’t it be amazing if there were some mechanism by which the various autocephalous Orthodox Churches could communicate with one another? Wouldn’t it be something if there was a global forum whereby Orthodox laypeople and clergy could assemble, discuss topical issues affecting the Church and world today, and propose solutions to problems great and minor? And this got me thinking about last summer’s fraught “Great and Holy Council,” with its absent patriarchs and rationalizations for sin that would get called out by any good father confessor. I was returned to a summer of so many missed opportunities—and for reckoning with hard truths about Orthodoxy today, as it really exists.

Patriarch Theodoros II and those he leads in Africa are obviously taking care of the felt needs of Orthodoxy in a landmass that could comfortably fit the United States, Eastern Europe, India, China, and Japan. Whether it was “consecration” or “ordination”—an important distinction, but still inside baseball to most—the point is that the decision reflects a verity about the Church in Africa: it is growing, just as it is for the Roman Catholic Church and the many Protestant churches, to say nothing of the rapid growth of Islam. Christianity is now well into a major demographic shift whose implications most have yet to fully comprehend. It is a fact now popularized in books by Philip Jenkins in The New Faces of Christianity (2006) and The Next Christendom (2011) that the geographical locus of Christianity has shifted to the world’s Southern and Eastern Hemispheres. Consider that in 1910 Christians in sub-Saharan Africa accounted for 10% of the total population; by 2010 that figure had risen to 63%. The Democratic Republic of Congo, location of the consecrations, has one of the top ten largest Christian populations in the world, with some 63.15 million believers. (Germany has 58.24 million Christians). While this shift may be lost on many non-Global Southerners and Easterners who spend much time hand-wringing over emptying and desiccated churches, it is apparently not lost on African Orthodox who have work to do and quite often lack the human and material resources to do it.

Frankly, some will never be convinced enough about the female diaconate to do anything about it here. It is curious that in the church that so prizes the normative weight of beliefs and practices of the early church, a time of active deaconesses, the burden of proof is placed on those seeking female diaconal restoration. Yet by our own historical reckoning, the burden of proof should fall on those arguing against the female diaconate and on those doing nothing to actively reinstate it. It is they who need to reasonably explain why deaconesses should no longer be part of Orthodox ecclesial life.

Throughout North American parishes male clergy are often forced to try to do almost everything by themselves. The married priest is liturgist, financial planner, spiritual father, biblical scholar, teacher, social worker, hospital chaplain, parish secretary, biological father, and husband. These men are understandably exhausted. Some leave the ministry altogether; I know them. Meanwhile, women are also doing the serious work of church—but they usually don’t get recognized for it. Why then do we not formalize their ministry, inspiring other women (and men) for a life of ecclesial service? Speaking about the women, Patriarch Theodoros explained, “We need them.” Do we not?

The female diaconate is not about mere or more recognition. It’s about meeting needs often left unaddressed because they go unmentioned, or because resources are tight, or because we are deaf to those voices refusing to shout. It’s about the normalization of lack and becoming so accustomed to the status quo that we fail to envision how enriched we would be by deaconesses in our midst. It is, as Carrie Frederick Frost argued in Public Orthodoxy, a failure of imagination. It is also a failure of leadership.

We are observing the Patriarch and African Synod do the needful. Admittedly, I am much more familiar with South Asia, but I can imagine these new deaconesses serving both women and men in various ways. See them traversing villages, seeking medical attention, visiting the sick, catechizing, remonstrating against abusive husbands, even (wait for it) praying out demons. They are doing diakonia—and one need not serve in the altar to do that. So why don’t we follow the lead of the African Church? What’s the hold up? All excuses now ring hollow. The refusal of the Church in North America to deal with the pressing needs of our parishes and society are calling the truth claims of our tradition into question. When the gap between the ideal and real widens to such an extent that the cognitive dissonance simply cannot be shaken, we are in real trouble. People become disillusioned. They leave without the fanfare of a podcast.

When I reflect upon the photo of those earnest women facing the iconostasis in expectation, I cannot help but think we are watching a Church embracing its mission. It is a Church more fully appreciating the contributions of more than half its members. It is the Church of the future and, as the numbers show, the present.

Meanwhile, here on this side of the world, one fears we are letting opportunities pass us by. Dubious notions of inevitable “progress” aside, there is certainly no guarantee Orthodoxy in North America will ever flourish. And we are way past the rhetoric of Orthodoxy being America’s best-kept secret. It’s not such a secret any more. Last summer, news of our Council spread far and wide. One Roman Catholic theologian told me he used to point to Orthodoxy as an alternative model of conciliar polity. “Now we’re not so sure,” he said soberly. In the age of the Internet, things are perhaps more public than we would want. There is then no place for triumphalism here, just the hardest thing to do in the world—to see things as they really are in our selves, communities, country, world, and Church.  We cannot do it alone. Africa can show us the way. Ss. Tatiana, Olympias, and Foebe, pray for us.

Kerry San Chirico is Assistant Professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Villanova University.

This article originally appeared on Public Orthodoxy, a publication of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center of Fordham University.

St. Phoebe Center for the Deaconess

“Women Willing to Offer Themselves”: The Historic Consecration of Deaconesses in Africa

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by Carrie Frederick Frost, St. Phoebe Board Member
published in The Wheel Journal
March 2, 2017

Several Orthodox women were made deaconesses in Democratic Republic of Congo on February 17, 2017. Though this is a remarkable and historical event not just in African Orthodoxy, but in Orthodoxy the world over, it took about five days for this news to travel into English-speaking quarters of the Church. This time lag is indicative of both the lack of communication channels among international theologians and hierarchs and the independent character of each of the autocephalous Orthodox Churches. The Synod of Alexandria, which had moved in November of 2016 to pursue the revival of the female diaconate, needed neither permission from, nor consultation with any other part of the Church to grant these women diaconal ministry earlier this month.

The information on the consecration of the deaconesses is scant. It appears that they were not ordained into a major order (cheirotonia) because their consecration took place at the end of Liturgy (rather than during it) and because the photographs show the laying on of hands by His Beatitude Theodoros II, Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa happening at his throne, rather than at the altar (as during an ordination). Instead, it is likely understood in the Synod of Alexandria that these women were blessed into a minor order (cheirothesia), more like the sub-diaconate. The association with the sub-diaconate is further evidenced by photos showing the women holding bowls like male sub-deacons hold during their reception into the sub-diaconate (and, at the end of Liturgy, present to the faithful the blessed water therein so that they may bless themselves). All these signs not withstanding, these women are being referred to as deaconesses, not sub-deaconesses.

The information about the women themselves is also scant. One woman is named, Theano, and is described as a “Catechist elder” and one of the first members of the mission staff at the Missionary Centre of Kolwezi. She was given the title, “Deaconess of the Missions.” It appears that five other women were also made deaconesses, and are understood to be entering “ecclesiastic ministry” to help with missionary efforts including adult baptism, marriage, and catechism. From these descriptions, it seems like Deaconess of the Missions Theano may have a different ministry from the five others, with their “ecclesiastic ministry,” which would be in keeping with the historical record which shows deaconesses performing a variety of tasks according to personal talents and local needs.

Three of the newly consecrated deaconesses are nuns, and, from the photos, none of the deaconesses appears to be particularly long in years. This is of significance because the canons on the books about deaconesses call for a forty years of age minimum, and any revival of the female diaconate must address whether this restriction applies to today’s circumstances and needs.

As the apostles and the early Christians knew well, it is never easy to be the first person, or first group of people, to do something. This move to consecrate deaconesses in the Synod of Alexandria took courage. It took the courage of the Synod, as well as the courage of its leader, His Beatitude Theodoros II, who consecrated these women himself. It took the courage of the local hierarch, Metropolitan Meletios of Katanga.  But the courage that is most luminous is that of these women themselves, who are stepping forward into entirely unchartered territory in their Church and in their communities.

An extant ordination rite for deaconesses states, “O Lord and Master, you do not reject women who are willing to offer themselves, in so far as it is fitting, to minister in your holy houses, but rather you accept them into the rank of ministers.” Deaconess of the Missions Theano and her sister deaconesses are truly “women who are willing to offer themselves.” It is my prayer that they are gracefully and lovingly accepted into the ranks of ministers, and that more women soon join them in Africa, and around the Orthodox world.

St. Phoebe Center for the Deaconess

Women Deacons in Africa; Not in America

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by Carrie Frederick Frost

History was made on February 17, 2017 when five women were consecrated deaconesses in the Orthodox Church. For many of us, this is a welcome but shocking development.

Speaking for myself, I expected the reintroduction of a female diaconate to occur in Greece, or elsewhere in Europe, or, even more likely, the United States; say, Pittsburgh. These are the places with multiple advocacy groups and a robust academic investigation into the history and pastoral function of the female diaconate.

Frankly, I anticipated—in a most unexamined way—the first Orthodox deaconess of our era would be white woman. (Let me pause and be clear, lest my readers be distracted: even though I am a white American woman advocating for the female diaconate, I have neither call nor desire to serve in this way.)

I now know that I suffered a serious failure of imagination.

The historic consecration of deaconesses this February took place in the African interior: in the Democratic Republic of Congo, part of the Synod of Alexandria. The five women who made history are Africans.

My own biases and insular experiences of Orthodoxy in America and Europe have limited me, and I am humbled.

The other factor that has limited me, and others interested in this topic, is the lack of international Orthodox forums for communication among hierarchs, scholars, and interested laypersons. As far as I can tell, no one in the English-speaking parts of the Church knew about the new deaconesses until a few days after they had been consecrated. Also, none of us working on the issue knew that the Alexandrian Synod was even considering this matter prior to its decision to revive the female diaconate a few months ago.

There are two questions I find very interesting: Why there? And why not here?

Why has the female diaconate been revived specifically in Africa, and why (or how) so swiftly? Though very little is known so far about the specific women consecrated at the Missionary Centre of Kolwezi, a news release states that one, Theano, will be given the title “Deaconess of the Missions,” and that the other deaconesses will help with missionary efforts including adult baptism, marriage, and catechism. It appears that these women were “blessed” to the diaconate, rather than “ordained,” yet they are being referred to as “deaconesses” rather than “sub-deaconesses.” It will be fascinating to learn about the mode of their consecration as more information makes its way to us in the US.

It also appears that their work will be deeply tied to the missionary efforts of the Orthodox Church in this part of Africa, which has been active since the 1950s and has more than a hundred parishes.  Bishop Athanasios Akunda of neighboring Kenya told me back when the Synod initially voted to revive the female diaconate: “Women are all over in our ministry. What is being done [making them deaconesses] is just confirmation for them to do their work not in fear. Yes, we need them.” I suspect that it is more comfortable for deaconesses in Africa (rather than deacons or priests) to assist with missionary matters like adult female baptism. Other issues of modesty and the culturally appropriate nature of woman-to-woman ministry may be informing these consecrations.

It is noteworthy just how quickly the Alexandrian Synod moved. After voting to revive the female diaconate in November of 2016, it consecrated its first deaconesses three and half months later.  In Orthodox time, that is a supersonic pace.

Though I had a failure of imagination in my own vision of the future female diaconate, happily this was not the case in Africa; the Alexandrian Synod saw a pastoral need and took decisive action.

Why has the female diaconate not been revived here in the US, despite active engagement and advocacy with this issue by scholars, laypeople, clergy, and even some hierarchs?

There is clearly a need for it. The American Church should ratify and bless the ministry that, in some cases, is already taking place. The Church should formally recognize and value the work that women offer as service (diakonia): feeding the poor, visiting the sick, praying with those in prison—work that is often valued and remunerated by secular society but not by the Church.

Perhaps most importantly, women need woman-to-woman ministry. This is not a need exclusive to modesty requirements during adult baptism in fourth-century Jerusalem or to missionary efforts in contemporary Katanga. There are so many challenging or important situations in which I believe most women need the ministrations of a woman rather than a man, such as: domestic violence, marital problems, miscarriage, sexual abuse, rape, menstruation, childbirth, lactation, care of the elderly, and gynecological illnesses. Every priest should be trained in, say, how to compassionately counsel a woman who has miscarried; I am not suggesting that all the male clergy step away from these matters (in fact, they would benefit from having female colleagues who have direct experience with these things). However, I would think this would be a place that the most traditional and the most progressive minded among us might agree: does it not make sense, for example, to have a trained and vetted deaconess who is overseen by her bishop and called to this work to minister to a young woman who miscarries her first pregnancy at twenty weeks?

There are many convincing reasons to revive the female diaconate, in my opinion, but the real need for woman-to-woman ministry is high on my list. For bishops and synods (other than Alexandria) to offer anodyne statements to the effect that the female diaconate ‘ought to be investigated,’ instead of dedicating effort into actively creating a female diaconate for the twenty-first century implies willful ignorance of real need, as well as a failure of not just courage, but also of imagination.

Even in the midst of this failure of imagination, there is—for me—no absence of delight in these recent events. I am rejoicing in the Lord that the needs of the Church are being acknowledged and that my sisters-in-Christ are being courageously and imaginatively honored in their call to diaconal ministry in the Orthodox Church in the Diocese of Katanga, Democratic Republic of Congo, Synod of Alexandria. May their courage and imagination be contagious!

Carrie Frederick Frost, PhD is a scholar of Orthodox theology, Professor of Theology at Saint Sophia Ukrainian Orthodox Seminary, and a Board Member of Saint Phoebe Center for the Deaconess.