Deaconesses?

We’ve got a really interesting and timely one this week, and best of all, the bulk of it was written for me! One of the topics that comes up from time to time in the Church is that of women’s ordination - why don’t we, why can’t we, isn’t it unfair, etc. These are all perfectly valid questions to ask in an ancient Church running in a modern world. Furthermore, there have been deaconesses in the Church’s past, and folks often want to know why we no longer have them as formal offices (if not strictly speaking, ordained, clerical roles). Anyway, to this end there has been recently some effort by the St. Phoebe Center for Deaconesses (which appears to be a largely OCA-backed organization with some ties to Oriental Orthodoxy in the examples given) to revive the role. To this end, one of our ROCOR clergy, Fr. Dcn. Brian Patrick Mitchell, PhD., has made a counterpoint post as well as an accompanying presentation that can be found here - I would encourage you to read both sides of this and prayerfully consider Father’s discussion of why the office was done away with in the first place.