Here's One To Rattle A Few Cages: Deaconesses

Pope Francis says a lot of things that get under the skin of the Katholik Krazies.  The comments about many (if not most) contemporary marriages being invalid because so many people today don’t understand—and consequently cannot make—lifelong commitment is only one thing.  His recent agreement to authorize a study about women deacons is another—and probably even more threatening.

The reason that women deacons are such a threat to the established (and, let’s me hones, patriarchal) Church order is that the diaconate is the firewall to the priesthood.  Ordination to the diaconate is the final step before Ordination to priesthood, and to ordain women to the diaconate—well, dollars to maniples, it is only a matter of time before we will see women being ordained priests and bishops. At least this is what the krazies fear—and, frankly, I think they are right.  Once we are used to the sight of a woman in an alb and stole standing at the altar, our emotional prejudices against women in the ordained ministries will somewhat quickly evaporate.  As a faithful Catholic I will agree that the priesthood (and episcopate) is closed to women; as a historian I have to say that the trajectory of history says it is only a matter of time. 

Deaconesses are mentioned as early as Paul’s letter to the Romans which refers to Phoebe as a deaconess.  (The Greek text uses this word but—at the insistence of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Catholic translations usually use the word “servant”—which is a literal translation of the Greek and which can be applied as well to male deacons.)  Both Christian writers (Clement of Alexandria and Origen) and pagan writers (Pliny the Younger) refer to deaconesses in the Christian communities.  Saints Basil, John Chrysostom, and Gregory of Nyssa all refer to ordained deaconesses and their ministry as well. 

Traditionalists acknowledge that there were deaconesses in the early Church but they claim that a deaconess is not a woman deacon, that deacons and deaconesses are two distinct offices and that the deaconesses did not share in the sacramental character attributed to deacons.  That question bears study but we need a very careful monitum (that’s Latin for “warning” for those, including some of our younger clergy, who like to pray in Latin but don’t understand a word of it).  We cannot attribute the 21^st century theological understanding of the Sacrament of Orders which we embrace to the Church of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries.  Our theology has evolved considerably—and in this case especially with the work of Saint Thomas Aquinas and the scholastic (and neo-scholastic) theologians who follow him and who for centuries now have held the balance of power in Catholic theological thought.  We must compare the deaconesses of late antiquity, not to how we understand deacons today but to how the Church of the late Roman world (and also the Byzantine world where women deacons continued to function until about the 12^th century) understood male deacons in their day.  Did the Church of those early centuries consider deaconesses to be women deacons or did they understand them to be in a “separate and unequal” position? 

On the one hand, deacons and deaconesses had distinctly different ministries. Deaconesses were assigned ministry to women where male deacons would not have been accepted.  In the Roman world women were always under the “protection” of a male—their fathers until marriage, then their husband, and in their widowhood their eldest surviving son.  A woman had no status before the law and could neither sue nor be sued—the legal burden fell on the man under whose protection she dwelt.  In such an environment it was necessary that certain ministrations to women, especially to the sick and the enfeebled and to women in childbirth, be carried out by a woman who could move comfortably around a Roman household.  But in fact, male deacons were designated for the care of the poor and the sick as well so the major difference was not the work but to whom they ministered.  Women deacons, unlike men deacons, did not directly participate in liturgical leadership.  The women’s choir was under their direction but they themselves did not step forward to proclaim the Gospel.  But again, it would have been considered inappropriate for a woman to have entered the all-male presbyterium where the clergy took their places around the altar.  Women deacons did have a liturgical role however in the sacrament of Baptism where they performed the actual baptism of women as the men deacons baptized the males. 

As the Roman world dissolved into the chaos of the Barbarian West the legal and social distinctions between women and men also dissolved.  Women were much more free to interact with men as equals—and even superiors—and the need for separate ministers for women became less pressing. At the same time in the West baptism by immersion began to be replaced by pouring or sprinkling and nudity was not required for the baptismal candidates, removing the need for women to be baptized by women.  The female diaconate survived however primarily in monastic communities where the abbess and perhaps a few senior nuns were still set apart (to avoid using the controversial word “ordained”) as deaconesses.  They wore the stole and maniple as did male deacons and sang the Gospel during the liturgical offices (and seemingly at Mass should no male deacon be present) though they sung it from within their choir and not from the presbyterium.  Deaconesses lasted somewhat later in the Eastern Churches—in public churches perhaps until the seventh century and in monastic communities until the 12^th.  But like in the West, as the primary function of the deacon became strictly liturgical, women were increasingly excluded. 

A curious vestige of the female diaconate has survived in the Western Church were the hermit-nuns of the Carthusian Order—the most secluded of the monastic orders—still receive at their final profession of vows the stole and maniple.  These nuns also still sing the Gospel during the Night Offices.   

Deacons are ordained and receive the Sacrament of Holy Orders but they do not receive nor participate in the priesthood (as do presbyters and bishops) other than to the extent and manner in which all the baptized faithful share in the Priesthood of Jesus Christ as members of God’s Priestly People.  One can still maintain, therefore, the current teaching of the Church that participation in the hierarchical Priesthood of the Episcopate—in which the presbyters (priests) share—is reserved by Divine Law to men and favor the ordination of women to the diaconate.  But my earlier point that the cultural barriers against admitting women to the ordained priesthood will evaporate as we accommodate to women deacons stands.  The opposition to women deacons is because the all-male diaconate is the firewall that protects an all-male priesthood. 

Women Deacons?

Well, the Synod is underway and Archbishop Paul Andre Durocher of Gatineau Quebec, President of the Canadian Bishops’ Conference, raised the issue of ordaining women to the Diaconate.  Of course it has the krazies in a flap.  There are those who still want to hold that women are to be veiled virgins or fecund mothers—leave everything else to the men.  But several of you have contacted me as to what I think about it.  I don’t know why that matters.  I don’t get a lot of say in things, just the chance to sit on the sidelines and take the occasional pot-shot when some itinerant emperor parades by naked.  Of course, given the dysfunction in our Church structures, that happens pretty often these days, faster than I can blog. 

But as to what I think of women deacons?  I think it is a great idea.  Long overdue.  I mean long—like maybe a millennium and a half—overdue.  Why did we ever stop ordaining women deacons?  They could have been a great help in spreading the faith up into Northern Europe in the sixth and seventh and eighth centuries.  They could have been of great pastoral help in the European urban expansion of the 12^th and 13^th centuries.  They could have anchored the faith in the rough seas of the 16^th century Reformations.  They could have been great and effective evangelists in the missionary expansions of the 17^th-20^th centuries.  And most important of all, if we had kept women deacons from the days of the primitive Church, our skirted clerics wouldn’t be so friggin’ frightened of human beings with lady parts now.   Honest to God, the way they go on you’d think we are going to have menstrual blood all over the altar steps.  Or that it couldn’t be cleaned up if it did happen.  Move on boys, nothing to see here. 

The first thing we need to remember is that while deacons receive the Sacrament of Holy Orders at their diaconal ordination, their participation in the priesthood is that priesthood common to all the baptized.  They do not share in the “ordained priesthood” in which priests share and bishops possess in its fullness.  Therefore, any theological blocks that may exist to women in the presbyterate or episcopate are not relevant to the admission of women to the diaconate.  Of course, since the diaconate is the fire-door to the priesthood we are letting the girls get awfully close; one senile bishop’s bejeweled hands away and no alarm bells to stop in time! Worked for the Episcopalians, but then a lot of things work for them that don’t for us and I am not going down that rabbit hole.  

It may surprise some readers too that while women deacons are a well established historical fact up until the fourth century, the Roman Catholic Church has continued the practice, albeit in a severely abrogated form.  Nuns of the Carthusian Order, perhaps the strictest of Religious Orders whose members live as hermits, on the occasion of the Solemn Profession of Vows are vested in the diaconal stole and given the right to read the Gospel at certain services.  (The right of liturgically proclaiming the Gospel is the most important of the rights and privileges of Deacons in the Catholic Church.  The Deacon takes precedence in the reading of the Gospel over any priest or bishop present.  Even the Pope!  Even Cardinal Burke!!!)  While no one considers the nuns to be “deacons,” nor to have received the Diaconate in the same sense in which men are ordained deacons, the unique role of these women is a vestige of the once common practice of nuns being ordained to the diaconate.  I have also read that the practice of Deacon-nuns has not completely disappeared in some of the non-Chalcedonian Churches of the East and there are Orthodox Churches considering reintroducing Deaconesses, especially in monastic communities.  So, in other words, some of the men aren’t afraid of the competition as long as the women are locked away where they can’t mess things up for the boys.  Got it?  Isn’t it always the way?

And I think this is the real problem in reintroducing the Diaconate to women.  For many conservative Catholic laity it is simply another indication of the radical social revolution of the last 75 years in western society where women have broken through glass ceiling after glass ceiling, displacing male leadership and chipping away at patriarchy.  For a significant portion of clergy—including male deacons—it opens a male preserve to radical change that would mark “the rise and the fall of many in Israel.”  I think there is serious need for us as a Church—note, for us as a Church, not simply the “them” in the red beanies—to discuss the broader and deeper issues of gender, power, and human sexuality.  We need to come to some level of honesty as to what the real issues are that we are permitting to shape us as a Church and how those issues are advancing or retarding our mission of proclaiming the Kingdom of God.  The questions are a lot deeper than ordaining women to the diaconate and the questions are long overdue.  

Foundations of the Anglican Church XXIII The Ecumenical Impact of Crying Wolf

CC

Before we continue our story on the development of the Anglican Church and in particular deal with its parting of the ways with the Roman Communion, we need to look at the topic of “validity of orders” so that when we get to the second phase of the English Reformation we will be able to put the decisions of papal authorities about the “validity” of Anglican Orders into an intelligible context.  The issue of “validity of orders” did not arise with the Reformers of the sixteenth century but is rooted in the struggles of the “Great Church” with various sects in Christian antiquity. 
So what do we mean by “The Great Church?”   Historians use the term “Great Church” to speak of mainline Christianity (as distinguished from the heretical sects that separated before the East/West schism of the eleventh century split it into what we today call Catholicism and Orthodoxy. In antiquity there were many groups which separated from mainline Christianity over doctrinal questions—the Novatianists, the Montantists, the Donatists—and the separations were bitter events, marked by polemics on both sides.
They say that history is written by the winners.  There is truth to that. In the same way, Orthodoxy is defined by the winners, or at least by the survivors.  Today we look on groups such as the Donatists or the Collyridians or the Ophites as “heretical,” but in their day they were viable communities of men and women fighting for what they believed to be true doctrine.  No one is a heretic in his own understanding.  Some groups we define today as heretical—the Arians come to mind—came very close to winning the battle to claim orthodoxy. Politics, History, and Economics—as well as personalities—play a major role in defining religious orthodoxy.   
One of the strategies used in these contests for the faith of the masses was to deny the legitimacy of one’s opponent’s access to the Divine.  “God does not hear their prayers…”  Claims and counter claims were made by all parties regarding the legitimacy of the baptism, of the Eucharist, and of the sacramental orders of their rival groups.  These arguments were not made over any substantial defects such as “form” or “matter” that would be used in later and more sophisticated arguments.  It was simply asserted that since the “faith” held by the opposing party was “wrong,” obviously the life of grace had no hold on them and their sacraments were void of any effective means of God’s grace. 
Such arguments commit a sort of lèse majesté against God—presuming that we have the ability to turn the faucet of grace off and on according to our whims, but then Jesus did say that we what bind on earth is bound in heaven.  Nonetheless, the historian must look differently on this than the theologian and see the crudeness of the ruse such allegations employ to win adherents  by undermining the credibility of the ranks of one’s opponents. 
We have looked at the rival claims to the papacy in the late ninth and early tenth centuries.  (cf January 15, January 24, June 6, June 8, June 18, August 5, December 7, 2011;  February 14, 2013).  Here too the issue of “valid orders” came into play as various popes declared the ordinations performed by their predecessors “invalid” or “validated” the ordinations of earlier predecessors—all depending on which political alliances they represented.  Such declarations that “orders” were “invalid” removed all of one’s predecessor’s allies from positions of power—annulling cardinals and bishops and archdeacons and permitting the new pope to replace potential enemies with his own allies.  These claims were often used in the various anti-pope crises of the twelfth century but the introduction of the scholastic method of theology in the twelfth and thirteenth century demanded an explanation that was both more explicit and more rational than simply polemic rantings. 
Scholastic Theology and in particular the work of Thomas Aquinas gave those who held power in the Church the tools they needed to disempower those with whom they disagreed.  Thomas’ work neatly defined sacraments in categories of “matter” and “form” and spoke of the “intention” of the minister.  All the ducks had to be lined up in a row. The exactly right matter had to be employed.  There had to be bread, for example, for the Eucharist and it had to be wheat bread.  And there had to be grape wine.  For baptism there had to be water—not beer, nor wine, nor even iced tea—but water, pure and simple.  Confirmation required chrism.  Penance required a sinner with sins to be forgiven.  Matrimony required one man and one woman, neither of whom had been properly married before.  Ordination required man eligible for ordination. (Among other requirements, he had to have two intact hands and [at least] two intact testicles.  I am not sure why the later was an essential requirement but it did prevent the ordination of eunuchs.) 
One had to have the right minister for the sacrament.  While a priest or deacon was ordinary for baptism, anyone could do in an emergency.  (There was, at times, argument over this with some insisting that only an ordained priest or bishop could baptize.)  After 1215, the Church taught that only a priest or bishop could absolve sins.  Only a Bishop or Priest could preside at the Eucharist or anoint the sick.  In the Western Church it came to be held that the husband and wife ministered the sacrament to each other; in the East it required a priest or bishop to minister the sacrament.  It would be debated up until the Council of Trent—and even afterwards as not all theologians have agreed—that only a bishop could ordain another bishop, a priest, or a deacon.  There also has been disagreement over whether a priest can confirm or whether it requires a bishop—contemporary Catholic thought permits it to the priest under certain circumstances but this was not always the case in the sixteenth century.  In the Eastern Churches the priest is the ordinary minister of “chrismation” as the sacrament is often called. 
We need to consider all this background and debate because at the time of the Reformation the Catholic Church will begin to claim that the various groups that break from it have “invalid orders.”  They will give a rationale for that claim—a lack of form or matter or intention.  But the historian always looks at it a bit skeptically, hearing the little boy who cried wolf.      

History Sometimes Flunks Theology Exams

The Theodora Episcopa Mosaic in the Basilica

of Santa Prassede in Rome

Sometimes I get correspondence about this blog asking why I bring up contemporary issues such as the new translation of the Mass which goes into effect at the end of this month or suggesting that I keep opinions to myself and “stick to the past.”   I think this is because most people who have not studied history in depth don’t understand what history is all about.  History is not about the past.  History uses the past as metaphor to speak about the present and the future.  In that way history is really a tool that helps us better understand not only our world and how it has evolved to be the way it is, but to help us understand human nature and how and why people act the way they do.  If one gets the doctorate in Church History one gets a degree such as D.Hist. or H.E.D. (Historia Ecclesiae Doctor) depending on the institution at which one studies but in the “real world” of academia, if academia can be called a real world—and I admit that is very debatable—the doctorate is Ph.D.  Philosophiae Doctor—Doctor of Philosophy.  We study history as philosophy, that is as a branch of the “love of wisdom” (which is what the word “philosophy” means.  It is not enough to know the facts, one has to be able to interpret the facts into a coherent narrative that gives us not only information but insight. 
     And a historian who studies the history of the Church is looking for insights, often insights that Theology—a discipline that is restricted by the authority of the Church—is prohibited from giving.  The historical facts often contradict the Theological doctrines, leaving theologians, at least Catholic Theologians,  powerless to set the record straight about things.  There are, for example, teachings once declared infallible that are no longer held by the Church.  At one point in the history of the Church, for example, the Church taught that only those “subject to the authority of the Roman Pontiff” could be saved.  The Church no longer holds that—and has not held it for a long time.   What are the implications of that for the notion of papal infallibility?    There are theological presuppositions unsupported by history—what does that do to magisterial authority?  For example: current Church teaching declares definitively that there never were women ordained to the ministries of bishop or priest.  Frankly, that question is—from a historical perspective—not closed.  (It is from a doctrinal one.)  Historians are still weighing and debating evidence to that question.  There are some archeological monuments that can be interpreted as referring to female bishops or priests.  The question is complex from historical and archeological perspectives.  Are we sure that they mean that the referred to females were bishops or priests?  No.  They could be the wife of the bishop (not uncommon before the fourth century) or the priest (not uncommon before the 12^th century).  There is a famous mosaic in the basilica of Santa Prassede in Rome that displays the image of “Theodora episcopa”—Theodora, the Lady Bishop.  This mosaic—from the early ninth century, is far too late for there to have been a lady bishop; moreover we know that Theodora was the mother of the Bishop, Pope Paschal I.  So you have to be careful how you interpret these things, but just because this particular artifact does not mean that the woman was a bishop one cannot say that several dozen other inscriptions from earlier centuries cannot refer to a woman bishop or priest.  And if they do so refer—was the bishop or priest in question a bishop or priest in the “Great Church” (i.e. the orthodox and apostolic Christian Church which antecedes both the Catholic and Orthodox Church) or from one of the many sects now seen to be schismatic or heretical such as the Collyridians or the Montanists who did ordain women.  Frankly the jury is out on the question of women’s ordination and the difficulty is that to prove that the Church never ordained women is an all but impossible task whereas a single example suffices to prove that they did.  Historans can look at these questions; Catholic theologians can’t—at least publically.  Moreover, the ministries of bishop and priest have evolved through the centuries.  Indeed, were there “bishops” and “priests” –in our theological understanding of a tripartite Sacrament of Orders—Bishops, Priests, Deacons—before the time of Ignatius of Antioch at the end of the first century?  It is a complex question.   There were episodes in the history of the Church—perhaps as late as the thirteenth century—when priests could confer the sacrament of Holy Orders.  On the other hand, there were times when it seems that priests were not seen as having the “power” to say mass or forgive sins.    The “powers” ascribed to the various orders (as in Holy Orders) have changed over the course of time.  Historians uncover the fact that things we think can never change have in fact been the product of historical evolution. The History of the Church unlocks possibilities for the future by showing us the variables of the past. 
     My closest friend of many years and his wife are Lutherans.  We often travel together and in the years I have lived in Rome they have been frequent guests.  They have never been able to get enough of Saint Peter’s—always wanting to return there. (I can think of a dozen churches I think are more beautiful and more interesting—including Santa Prassede that I mentioned above.)  And I always remind them that it was the building of this Church—Saint Peter’s—that triggered Luther and his protest against selling indulgences.  I love irony and history is full of irony.   History shows us that only God was in the beginning, is now, and shall be evermore.  We humans and our frail institutions—including the Church—come and go, changing to the needs of the times and like Ozymandias passing from the scene altogether when no longer needed.