Female Deacons in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches

Will the Ancient Churches Re-establish an Ancient Order of Women Clergy?

An AI-generated picture of a modern Deaconness.

I had my interest piqued when I read that the Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria had ordained a woman in Zimbabwe as a Deacon. According to Carrie Frederick Frost writing in Commonweal:

In Harare, Zimbabwe, Angelic Molen was ordained a deaconess on May 2, 2024, in the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria and all Africa. The Alexandrian Patriarchate is the autocephalous Orthodox Church in the continent of Africa, one of—depending on whom you ask—fourteen to sixteen autocephalous Orthodox Churches in the world. With the approval and support of the Alexandrian Synod and His Beatitude Patriarch Theodoros II, His Eminence Metropolitan Serafim of Zimbabwe (Kykotis) laid hands on Deaconess Angelic (pronounced “angelic”) in St. Nektarios Mission Parish at Waterfall. The ordination was attended by about two hundred people, more than half of whom were children.

The rationale for the ordination was very sound as Frost noted the importance of the Diaconate for ministry and mission:

The ancient order of the diaconate was a service ministry of the Church, directly involved in the care of local Christians and of the larger community. Both deacons and deaconesses assisted with the philanthropic work of the Church, while other roles were segregated by gender; deacons took communion to sick and homebound men, deaconesses did the same for women, etc. Both deacons and deaconesses had (different) liturgical roles. The current movement to ordain deaconesses focuses on the need for women to be vetted, trained, supported, and given the authority of the Orthodox Church to minister in a diaconal spirit.

I’ve written elsewhere In Praise of Deacons on why the Diaconate matters and it should not be considered a mere stepping stone to the priesthood. I’ve also written about how women in Bithynia in the early second century performed ministrae and were either deacons or pastors of the churches there.

In addition, the Catholic Church is also debating the issue of ordaining women to the Diaconate. Pope Francis has appointed two commissions to study whether women could be ordained deacons. However, in an interview with CBS's 60 Minutes program, when posed with the question as to whether the Roman Catholic Church will ordain women as Deacons, he responded with a very emphatic “No!” Though he recognized that women were often exercising deacon-like roles without formally having the title of “Deaconness.” 

But to do the work and role without any title, authority, or even pay, doesn’t quite seem fair, does it?

I say, bring back female Deacons in the Orthodox and Catholic churches!

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The case for female Deacons is quite solid.

For a start, we have Phoebe, who is described as a diakonos of the Church in Cenchraea in Romans 16:1. While diakonos can mean “servant,” it was customarily used for the office of “deacon” as well.

There is a fourth-century tombstone on the Mount of Olives with an inscription that reads: “Here lies the minister and bride of Christ, Sofia the deacon, a second Phoebe. She fell asleep in peace on the 21st of the month of March.” Now this is interesting because it means that the church in Jerusalem at the time not only had female deacons but specifically connected them with Phoebe in Rom 16:1.

There were women deacons in the West, though evidence is scant and generally late, but they are there. For example, from the Latin West in the sixth-century, a grave site has inscriptions that refer to Anna, a female deacon from Rome; Theodora, a female deacon from Gaul; and Ausonia, a female deacon from Dalmatia.

How did the women in the Diaconate disappear?

Well, several writings such as the Apostolic Constitutions and Didascalia gradually put more and more restrictions on what women can and can’t do even as deaconesses. The Council of Orange in 441 banned the ordination of Deaconesses, though it had no authority beyond its own immediate environment.

But the major change came with the 12th-century reformatio which was a seismic change for the Catholic church, mostly for the better, but the downside was that ordination was increasingly understood as attending to the Altar and Mass as either a priest or assistant, roles that were thought to be restricted to men.

One must appreciate that in Roman Catholic theology, it is not the Bible or the church fathers that are authoritative, it is the entire chain of tradition from the past to the present which matters. In which case, any move to ordain female deacons has to be reconciled with the 12th-century reformatio and the Tridentine counter-reformation which hardened Catholic stances on the maleness of the clergy.

But who knows, if the Catholic Church embraces “synodality,” which is the new buzzword in ecumenical circles, maybe that will force a rethink of the issue.

Here’s some recommended reading:

Lynn Cohick, Women in the World of the Earliest Christians (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2009).

Lynn Cohick and Amy Hughes, Christian Women in the Patristic World: Their Influence, Authority, and Legacy in the Second through Fifth Centuries (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2017).

Edwina Murphy, “Second Century Christian Women,” in Baylor Handbook on Second Century Christianity, eds. Michael F. Bird and Scott Harrower (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, forthcoming).

Marg Mowczko, “Phoebe: Deacon of the Church of Cenchrea.” https://margmowczko.com/was-phoebe-a-deacon-of-the-church-at-cenchrea-part-2/

There is also a good video by Lynn Cohick and Amy Hughes on women in the early church.