Widows and deaconesses in the hierarchy of the Early Church
Abstract
This article deals with the issue of institutionalisation of women’s ministries in the Early Church using a broad source base. The earliest organisation of women in Eastern and Western Christian communities was the order of widows which included elderly and only once married women who kept chastity. They did not receive special ordination, prayed for other women of the community, instructed them in the faith, visited sick women, received fi nancial support from the Church, and therefore occupied a lower degree in the clergy. From the 3rd — 4th centuries, the ministry of deaconesses was spreading widely in the Church, like the ministry of widows, which was due to the interaction of the male clergy and women in the Church. It is not known how the ministry of deaconesses came to replace the ministry of widows, but since the functions of both women’s institutions diff ered slightly, this issue should be considered insignifi cant. In the early Byzantine period (5th — 6th centuries), the status of deaconesses was equated to that of a subdeacons, highest for a woman who devoted herself to God. Deaconesses received ordination from the bishop, wore the diaconal orarion, but were excluded from the male clergy and did not perform any clerical functions like the dea conal ones.
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