The Order of Deaconesses: Historical Analysis and the Quest for its Revival

Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
10:48 Arguments for and against the equality between male and female deacons
29:18 What does the canons say about deaconesses?
45:58 Ritual purity
56:02 Secularism
1:01:32 The different prayers at ordination
1:08:58 The question of authority
1:18:29 Laity vs priesthood
1:26:25 Theology, economy, and equality
1:45:27 Closing remarks
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Protodeacon (Brian) Patrick Mitchell's book:
www.amazon.se/-/en/Brian-Patr...
Fr. Lawrence Farley's articles:
1. nootherfoundation.ca/the-call...
2. nootherfoundation.ca/myth-bus...
3. nootherfoundation.ca/the-need...
Fr. Patrick Ramsey's book:
www.amazon.com/Minor-Clergy-O...

[@darrencameron4493]

A first class and necessary discussion on this issue. Thank you brother for your continued great work on your channel

[@alexarther97]

Somehow missed this in the flurry of deaconess related videos. What a great panel of guests, thanks!

[@ordinaryorthodox9980]

I had an extended series of conversations with a cradle Orthodox woman at my church that began by mentioning Frost's book and advocated pushing altar girls, then deaconesses, and progressed to her advocating a removal of all gender specific language around the holy trinity, and for women preists and hierarchs. I held the line throughout, and forced her to think through the implications of her views- that the rendering of all distinctions between the sexes arbitrary and the changing of our language to fit the message of today would so fundamentally shift the church's theanthropology that there would be nothing to stop the rest of the advance of the LGBTQ movement in the church. She responded by admitting she wouldn't mind if the church one day ordained a trans bishop.
This stuff is poison.

[@theophan9530]

It goes to show that "cradle Orthodoxy" means nothing in the Western diaspora, where hardly anything in the cultural environment helps Orthodox immigrants keeping the mindset of their ancestors.

[@respectkindness-oj6xz]

reminded me of exceptions. St. Olimpia the deaconess, St. Drosida (daughter of Trajan, baptised herself in a lake by triple immersion in absence of clergy, later christians considered her baptism valid), St. Christina of Tyre (realised the idols of her father were fake and acknowledged there is probably an uncreated almighty God who created the world, not sure if she was ever baptised by a human, in some icons she was painted as being received directly by Jesus Christ Himself), a story from a monastic of Optina who encountered a woman who baptised her formerly irreligious husband by sprinkling him 3 times with Holy Water on his deathbed, other stories of women baptising men when no clergy was available nearby

[@theophan9530]

@@respectkindness-oj6xz Yeah, there's no problem with those : baptism in exceptional circumstances can be performed by any Orthodox Christian, including women ; the case where there are no Christians around must be very very exceptional, and justify the possibility of "self-baptism" (in the true faith). Baptism of blood of the Martyrs also counts as an exceptional baptism widely recognized as "valid" (but necessitates the Martyrs were either catechumens ou were internally converted to Orthodoxy by seeing other Confessors or Martyrs confessing the faith). The question of deaconesses is another one, and it cannot rest on "exceptions". Baptism seems to be the only sacrament which suffers so much variation and exceptional cases, when the norm cannot be applied (as we can notice with several cases of "self-baptism", even sometimes of mock "self-baptism" that actually "worked"). We would not say the same for Chrismation, Eucharist or Ordination.

[@respectkindness-oj6xz]

@@theophan9530 reminded me of a saint, not sure if he was bishop i do not remember his name, but the story was that some children were playing imitating what they heard from clergy in the church and accidentally the epiclesis happened miraculously and that saint observed what those children were doing and claimed that the holy gifts brought be them were sanctified

[@respectkindness-oj6xz]

@@theophan9530 the children essentially imitated liturgy by themselves