GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH REINSTATES ORDER OF DEACONNESS: A MODEL FOR A ROMAN CATHOLIC FEMALE DIACONATE?

Patriarch Theodoros II and the Greek Orthodox Holy Synod of the Patriarchate of Alexandria recently reinstated 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 Orthodox theologians from theology schools and seminaries of the United States and Greece stated.

"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 year 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.  The ministry was suppressed in the late Byzantine period.

In what appears to have been a blending of the ordination of Deacons and the blessing of those entering the Subdiaconate (the highest minor order in the Orthodox Church), Theodoros did not ordain the women in the traditional manner, with the laying of hands at the altar, but "consecrated" them at a place removed from the sanctuary. 

How the revitalization of a female order of Deacons in the Orthodox Church may influence the work of Pope Francis' commission studying the possibility of female Deacons in the Roman Catholic Church will certainly be studied closely by Vatican watchers and scholars, to be sure.

It should be noted that, in the Orthodox Church, the Diaconate is a ministry which is permanent and not seen as a step to the Priesthood or Episcopacy.  It is a vocation in its own right as is the Permanent Diaconate in the Roman Catholic Church.