Demi Tomasides
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WCC Working Group on Violence Against Kids and Women

December 2024

Rev. Archdeaconess Angelic-Phoebe Molen

Good morning and a special welcome to all of you present here. It’s an honour to be graced by the presence of our brothers and sisters from the World Council of Churches (WCC) and Zimbabwe Council of Churches (ZCC).

My name is Archdeaconess Angelic-Phoebe Molen, and I welcome you on behalf of His Eminence Metropolitan Serafim Kykotis, the Metropolitan of the Holy Archbishopric of Zimbabwe and Angola. Allow me to remind you of the true meaning of your presence here: love, peace, and goodwill to all. As Romans 15:7 says, “Therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God,” my brothers and sisters welcome to the Orthodox Church Zimbabwe. Saint Nektarios Mission Centre Harare and I welcome you all.

Through the blessings of His Eminence Metropolitan Serafim Kykotis we are doing a lot of initiatives and projects in our metropolis. We organize seminars on pastoral ministry and ecology with youth and mothers from all our local parishes. The main purpose of these seminars with youth is to educate them on how to be good stewards of our planet and to protect the environment since it is a sacred gift from God. Our environment is where we live. There must be harmony between the environment and living beings. Right now, because we are living away from the will of God, the environment is under duress. The situation is alarming as our natural environment is overexploited by negative ecological activities (ecological sins) to meet human needs. It is because of many negative ecological human activities that we are not able to maintain a healthy balance with nature.

The threat we face includes manmade disasters and global warming. These threats are real and have raised an alarming situation. We need to come together to save our environment. That is why, as the Greek Orthodox Church of Zimbabwe, we have initiatives with the youth and the Sunday school children to protect the environment.

By protecting nature, we protect people. Nature can survive without humans, but humans cannot survive without nature. We have tree-planting projects at our local parishes. We have a fruit tree plantation at Saint Serafim Parish in Snakepark. Here at Saint Nectarios, the Sunday school children established a small orchard in the church’s backyard. These trees will provide fruits and shade for the children in the future. We ask our people to do the same in their own homes. When we produce something, we save money at the supermarkets, especially in this country with the highest unemployment and the highest inflation in the world.

These initiatives by our youths and Sunday school children throw light on what humankind needs to do to protect and preserve the environment. As you know, nature offers everything from clothing and water to food and shelter. All living beings are a part of the ecosystem. Hence, it becomes our responsibility to take care of the natural habitat.

The youths and Sunday school children are doing monthly clean-ups around the church neighborhood. It’s an initiative that can be done by each one of us sitting here; we can make our earth a better place to live by taking simple steps like throwing waste in proper bins, saying no to plastic bags, etc. Rather than complaining about pollution, such small steps must be taken to make our environment sustainable.

With the blessings from our Pope and Patriarch Theodoros II, His Eminence Metropolitan Serafim Kykotis nominated three ladies to attend the WCC 11th General Assembly in Karlsrule, Germany in 2022. As the coordinator of ecological activities in our local parishes, I was privileged to be one of the women in attendance. The other lady was Celestine from Democratic Republic of Congo, who coordinates initiatives for the protection of women and children against violence. Finally, there was Zipporah Mwuara from Kenya who studies theology through a scholarship from WCC and coordinates initiatives on the involvement of women in theological studies. She now works in Nairobi translating liturgical text into African dialects.

Additionally, with the blessing of our Patriarch Theodoros, His Eminence Metropolitan Serafim Kykotis nominated only youths to attend AACC General Assembly last year in Abuja, Nigeria. One of them was a blind young man from Kenya named Samson. He is the President of the Association of the Blind in Kenya and received school assistance from His Eminence Metropolitan Serafim Kykotis twenty-seven years ago when he was the Archbishop of Kenya and Tanzania.

Through the blessings of His Eminence Metropolitan Serafim Kykotis many of our youth were sent to represent the Church in workshops, seminars, and general assemblies nationally and internationally. I had the privilege to represent the Greek Orthodox Church internationally in countries like South Africa, Zambia, Nigeria, and Germany. We had trainings on ecology from different international organizations like SAFCEI, AACC, WCC, and our very own ZCC.

If you want to know the success of a church, see their women. The women are equipped with training on catering, basic baking, and tailoring. The women from all our local parishes meet every Thursday for community and then go for catering, baking, or tailoring classes. Through the blessings of His Eminence Metropolitan Serafim Kykotis and the help from Mrs. Ariadni Psillos, the courses are free of charge and open to all our church members. The participants graduate and are awarded certificates after finishing their courses. The mission behind all these trainings is to equip the women with the ability to generate income and to help look after their children.

By all means, let’s continue to pray for the poor and the needy but let every one of us do more than pray. Let’s all do what we can to lift up those arms that hang down. Through the blessings of His Eminence Metropolitan Serafim Kykotis and the cooperation of our parish clergy and the local church committees, the needy and orphaned children are receiving food after the church service. Every child is a hungry child in Zimbabwe. After our Divine Liturgy, more than 100 children per parish in all our local parishes receive food. They normally receive a plate of sadza or sometimes rice, soup, vegetables and meat, and a cup of orange drink. In Zimbabwe, the average family has only a single decent meal per day, so this feeding programme helps. Can you imagine a family, with children under ten years old, eating only once per day? Feeding the children is how our church services the needy and the poor. We give thanks to God for our brothers and sisters who make small donations for this important feeding project.

Many families in Zimbabwe face economic hardship, which keeps the children from going to school. There should be no doubt that the church holds the responsibility to give its abundance to help the needy and orphaned. Education is one way to do so. With small donations, Christians from abroad are helping with school fees to all our needy children who are of school-going age – from ECD level to, sometimes, even University level. This cultivates our children to be future professionals who will serve the local community and the whole country. Through education, they will look after their own families, especially their parents who sacrifice for the survival and suffering people of our local communities. We strive towards an active theology of sharing. 

Your visit today, 10 December 2024, marks the end of 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence. It runs from 25th November (the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women) until 10th December, Human Rights Day.

But for us, as Christians, we should be sensitive to protecting women and kids every day. Any abuse to any human being is an abuse to God. All of us have been created according to the image and likeness of God. Violence against women happens in every country and every culture causing harm to millions of women and girls. The Greek Orthodox church notes that gender-based violence knows no boundaries and affects individuals irrespective of their age and social status. Thus the church firmly believes that it has a moral duty to address the scourge of gender-based violence holistically. Our moral principle, with the blessing of our Metropolitan Serafim, emphasizes that there is zero tolerance for any violation against women and kids.

Violence against women is rife in Zimbabwe and affects all women, regardless of geographic location, wealth, or education. According to the Zimbabwe Demographic Health Survey (2015) at least 13% of women have experienced physical violence and at least 13% have experienced sexual violence. United Nations Population Fund has been working with partners in Zimbabwe to implement a wide range of interventions to reduce gender-based violence and to increase the availability and utilization of gender-based violence services by survivors and perpetrators. The key goals of the programme include increasing awareness of gender-responsive laws and services; women’s rights; strengthening the gender-based violence referral pathway; provisions of direct services, including legal aid and psychosocial support; and mobilizing men and young people to support gender equality.

Partners such as the National Council of Churches of Zimbabwe, AACC, WCC,  Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Gender and Community Development, Ministry of Health and Child Care, Zimbabwe Women Lawyers Association, City of Harare health department, and Musasa Project United Nations Population Fund have set various centers to ensure survivors have access to critical services.

The government of Zimbabwe instated the Zimbabwe National Gender-based Violence Strategy of 2023-2030. The National Gender-based Violence  Strategy provides a guiding framework for the national response to gender-based violence in Zimbabwe. The vision of the strategy is “a gender-just society, free from all forms of gender-based violence and harmful Practices by 2030.” Its goal is to achieve a thirty percent reduction in the prevalence of all forms of gender-based violence and harmful practices by 2030.

Your visit here is not by mistake or by chance, all of you taking time out of your busy schedules means a lot to our Orthodox Church. What you do has far greater impact than you can imagine. On behalf of His Eminence Metropolitan Serafim Kykotis, I would like to say your visit here is worthy to remember, and we welcome you again anytime at Saint Nectarios Mission Centre. We pray for your important ministry, and for you to do your best protecting every human being as a child of God. Thank you for coming. THANK YOU.

Demi Tomasides
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To His Eminence Metropolitan Serafim Kykotis and Professor Carrie Frederick-Frost,

With great joy, I write to you to report on my seven-month journey as a deaconess, starting from my ordination in May.

The past seven months have been very fruitful, and I celebrate the work of the various programs and initiatives of my ministry. The people of Saint Nectarios support me and the ministry of the deaconess, and I have faced no challenge in my ministry.

The Sunday School children and I created a garden that provides vegetables for the Feeding Programme, which feeds the needy children at my parish. The children are very happy to have food every Sunday. We hold catechism classes with the children every Sunday after the Divine Liturgy and before receiving food.

I oversee the women’s programmes and serve as their advisor when help is needed. We do pastoral visits with the women. We visit each other’s homes for prayers, mostly when we notice that our fellow member is absent at church.

With the blessings of His Eminence Metropolitan Serafim Kykotis, I appear at different programmes on his behalf. On the 10th of December, 2025, we welcomed visitors from the World Council of Churches, and I presented a welcome speech on behalf of H. E Archbishop Serafim Kykotis. I prayed that the name of our Lord be praised for the positive impact of this ministry on the spiritual development and well-being of the Orthodox people of Zimbabwe.

I am satisfied with my ministry, and I believe and hope that all my parish members will continue to share their support. Many thanks to you, Professor Carrie and the Saint Phoebe Center, for your support, both spiritual support and financial support for my university studies. It is because of you that I have completed my first year of studies, and I am looking forward to my second year in 2025. I promise not to let that opportunity go and not to put your kindness and generosity to waste. 

I pray and hope that Saint Phoebe Center and His Eminence Metropolitan Serafim Kykotis will offer me all opportunities to move forward with the work that awaits us in 2025, as we continue working together for the good and benefit of all.

Many thanks, once again, for your continued support. 

Yours in Christ’s service,

ArchDeaconess Angelic-Phoebe Molen

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.