The Recovery of the Deaconess

Behr-Sigel’s principal concrete proposal was the restoration of the ancient order of deaconesses — not re-enacted from the Byzantine euchologion but adapted to present need. She was among the theological architects of the Inter-Orthodox Consultation at Rhodes in 1988, which called for the order to be revived, and she led a petition to the Ecumenical Patriarch to that end. Nearly forty years later the Rhodes recommendation has been acted on by two Churches and remains unimplemented across most of the Orthodox world.

Tradition: Orthodox (France — Russian emigration milieu)

The Order and the Argument

The repository sets out the history of the deaconess in detail, and this file does not duplicate it: see The Deaconess: Ancient Order, Decline, and Modern Revival. In summary, the elements Behr-Sigel and the other advocates of restoration rely on are:

  • Apostolic attestation. Phoebe, “a diakonos of the church at Cenchreae” (Romans 16:1–2) — whether the word there carries the later technical sense is itself contested.
  • A defined ministry. The Didascalia Apostolorum (3rd c.) and the Apostolic Constitutions (c. 380) describe the deaconess’s role at the baptism of adult women, her instruction of the newly baptized, and her pastoral visiting; the Constitutions preserve an ordination prayer invoking the Holy Spirit and naming Phoebe as the type of the office (Apostolic Constitutions VIII.19–20).
  • Canonical regulation. Chalcedon (451), Canon 15, sets a minimum age of forty and requires the laying on of hands (cheirotonia).
  • A Byzantine rite performed at the altar. The eighth-century Barberini Codex (gr. 336) and later euchologia give an ordination performed during the Divine Liturgy, at the altar, with the invocation of the Holy Spirit — structurally parallel to the ordination of the male deacon. Evangelos Theodorou, Cipriano Vagaggini and Valerie Karras have argued from this that the Byzantine deaconess received a true sacramental ordination (Karras, “Female Deacons in the Byzantine Church,” Church History 73, 2004).
  • The order was never abolished. It fell into disuse — most often attributed to the shift from adult to infant baptism — but no council suppressed it. Restoration would then be a recovery, not an innovation.

Each of these is contested by opponents of restoration, chiefly on the ground that the deaconess received a cheirothesia (blessing) rather than a cheirotonia (ordination) in the proper sense — a reading drawn from the twelfth-century canonist Theodore Balsamon and from Nicaea (325) Canon 19. The repository states both sides of that dispute in the deaconess history file and does not adjudicate it, and neither does this collection.

What Behr-Sigel Wanted

Three things, and the third is the one most often missed.

Restoration, not invention. Her argument is from tradition. This is not a rhetorical convenience: it is continuous with fifty years of work on the actual historical forms of Orthodox holiness and ministry, and it is why her deaconess case can be, and is, shared by Orthodox who reject everything else she argued.

Ordination, not a blessing. She accepted the historical evidence for an ordained female diaconate, which is to say she took the Theodorou–Karras reading of the Byzantine rite (Sarah Hinlicky Wilson, interview, Eastern Christian Books, November 2013). This is the contested point, and it is contested on evidential rather than confessional grounds.

Adapted, not reconstructed. Hinlicky Wilson’s summary is exact: Behr-Sigel “spearheaded a petition to the ecumenical patriarch asking for it to be reinstated — however, not simply re-created from the past, but adapted to present needs” (Hinlicky Wilson, interview, 2013). The ancient deaconess’s central liturgical function, assisting at the immersion and anointing of adult women, has largely lost its occasion; what the Church now needs from such an order is catechesis, charitable administration, the pastoral care of women, hospital and prison visiting, and mission. That is also, precisely, what the Rhodes consultation recommended.

[Disputed: the date, text, wording and outcome of the petition to the Ecumenical Patriarch. It is reported by Hinlicky Wilson, who says Behr-Sigel spearheaded it. This collection could not establish when it was submitted, who else signed it, or what response it received, and no such details are asserted here.]

Rhodes, 1988

The Inter-Orthodox Consultation at Rhodes, convened by Ecumenical Patriarch Demetrios I with delegates from twelve autocephalous Churches, met in 1988 and is the high-water mark of pan-Orthodox consensus on this question. Its conclusions stated that “the apostolic order of deaconesses should be revived,” noting that “it was never altogether abandoned in the Orthodox Church though it has tended to fall into disuse,” and recommended the restoration of the diaconate generally — male and female — in its full range of services, social as well as liturgical (Conclusions of the Inter-Orthodox Consultation, Rhodes 1988, §32; orthodoxdeaconess.org).

Among the participants and theological architects were Bishop Kallistos (Ware), Elisabeth Behr-Sigel, and Kyriaki Karidoyanes FitzGerald (as recorded in the repository’s deaconess history, following orthodoxdeaconess.org).

Rhodes is the decisive fact in any assessment of Behr-Sigel on this question, and it cuts in a direction her critics rarely acknowledge and her admirers rarely qualify. In favor: the position she advocated was adopted by a consultation of twelve autocephalous Churches convened by the Ecumenical Patriarch. It is not a private opinion and it is not an importation. In qualification: a consultation is not a council. Rhodes 1988 produced recommendations, not canons; it bound no one; and the fact that its central recommendation has gone largely unimplemented for nearly forty years is itself a datum about how the Orthodox Church has received it.

What Has Actually Happened Since

The repository’s deaconess history gives the verified chronology, which is summarized here because it is constantly overstated in both directions.

The Church of Greece, 8 October 2004. The Holy Synod, under Archbishop Christodoulos, resolved that diocesan bishops may ordain senior nuns of monasteries within their dioceses as deaconesses for the needs of those monasteries, with the explicit understanding that this is not an appointment to the priesthood. A small number of nuns have since been blessed under this provision. The decision applied to the monastic, not the parish, context (orthodoxdeaconess.org; St. Mary Orthodox Church, Cambridge).

The Patriarchate of Alexandria, 16 November 2016 and 17 February 2017. The Holy Synod of Alexandria resolved on 16 November 2016 to restore the institution of deaconess for its African missions. On 17 February 2017, at the missionary centre of Kolwezi in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Patriarch Theodoros II consecrated the catechist elder Theano “Deaconess of the Mission,” and in the same period subdeaconesses were instituted in the Congo for catechetical and missionary work. The exact sacramental status of the 2017 consecrations — full deaconess ordination or a blessing for subdiaconal service — was discussed and disputed at the time (orthochristian.com, 2017; Basilica.ro).

That last sentence is the one most often lost. The 2016–17 Alexandrian acts are frequently reported as “the Orthodox Church has restored the female diaconate.” They were the acts of one patriarchate, for its African missions, and their sacramental character was contested from the beginning. Behr-Sigel died in November 2005 and lived to see neither.

Alexandria again, 2 May 2024. On Holy Thursday 2024, at the St. Nektarios mission parish in Harare, Zimbabwe, Metropolitan Serafim (Kykotis) of Zimbabwe, with the approval of Patriarch Theodoros II and the Alexandrian Synod, ordained Angelic Molen a deaconess during the Divine Liturgy, at the altar, using the deacon’s ordination service with feminine pronouns and a reference to St. Phoebe added (Public Orthodoxy, 2024–2025; Religion News Service, 17 May 2024). As of 2026, no other autocephalous Church has followed Alexandria.

The Objections, Stated

The principal objections to restoration, made by traditionalist clergy and laity (e.g. the 2018 “Public Statement on Orthodox Deaconesses by Concerned Clergy and Laity,” orthodoxethos.com), are three, and they are stated here at their strength because §4.2 requires it:

  1. That the ancient deaconess was consecrated (cheirothesia), not ordained (cheirotonia) — Balsamon’s reading, contested by the revival scholars but not refuted to the satisfaction of those who hold it.
  2. That reviving the order responds to secular feminist pressure rather than to genuine ecclesial need, and risks becoming a step toward the ordination of women to the priesthood. Behr-Sigel is, from this side, exhibit A: the theologian who advocated the diaconate and also raised the priesthood question is taken to demonstrate that the two are not in practice separable. Her supporters answer that most advocates of the deaconess reject the presbyterate, that the Church of Greece’s own decision states the distinction explicitly, and that a possible misuse is not an argument against a legitimate recovery.
  3. That unilateral action by one patriarchate, without pan-Orthodox consensus, threatens unity.

Supporters reply that Rhodes 1988 already expressed a pan-Orthodox judgment, that the order is a recovery of apostolic and patristic tradition, and that the diaconate is categorically distinct from the priesthood. The question remains open and unresolved across the Orthodox world.

Where This Leaves Her

On the diaconate, Behr-Sigel’s position was mainstream enough to be adopted, in substance, by an inter-Orthodox consultation in which she took part; conservative enough to be shared by theologians who oppose every other conclusion of hers; and unimplemented enough, forty years on, to remain a live question rather than a settled one. It is the least controversial and the most consequential of her proposals.

It is also the place where the distinction this collection insists on is hardest to keep: her opponents’ second objection is, precisely, that the distinction does not hold in practice. That is a claim about consequences, not about principles, and it is not settled by asserting the principle. It is taken up in Section 07 and in The Orthodox Criticism.

See Also

References

  • Conclusions of the Inter-Orthodox Consultation, Rhodes, 1988, §32 (orthodoxdeaconess.org). (“The apostolic order of deaconesses should be revived”; convened by Ecumenical Patriarch Demetrios I with delegates from twelve autocephalous Churches; Ware, Behr-Sigel and FitzGerald among the participants.)
  • Hinlicky Wilson, Sarah. Interview, Eastern Christian Books, November 2013. (Behr-Sigel’s acceptance of the historical evidence for female deacons; the petition to the Ecumenical Patriarch; “not simply re-created from the past, but adapted to present needs.”)
  • Behr-Sigel, Elisabeth. Le ministère de la femme dans l’Église. Paris: Cerf, 1987. English: The Ministry of Women in the Church, trans. Steven Bigham. Redondo Beach, CA: Oakwood Publications, 1991.
  • Karras, Valerie A. “Female Deacons in the Byzantine Church.” Church History 73 (2004): 272–316.
  • Theodorou, Evangelos. Heroines of Love: Deaconesses through the Centuries (in Greek). Athens, 1949.
  • FitzGerald, Kyriaki Karidoyanes. Women Deacons in the Orthodox Church: Called to Holiness and Ministry. Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1998.
  • Didascalia Apostolorum, ch. 16; Apostolic Constitutions III.15–16, VIII.19–20, 28; Council of Chalcedon (451), Canon 15; Council of Nicaea (325), Canon 19.
  • “Church of Greece Restores Diaconate for Women” (orthodoxdeaconess.org), on the Holy Synod’s decision of 8 October 2004.
  • “Patriarch Theodoros of Alexandria performs first consecration of deaconesses” (orthochristian.com / Basilica.ro, 2017); Patriarchate of Alexandria Synod, 16 November 2016.
  • “Reflections on the Ordination of Deaconess Angelic” (Public Orthodoxy, 2024); Religion News Service, 17 May 2024.
  • “A Public Statement on Orthodox Deaconesses by Concerned Clergy and Laity” (orthodoxethos.com, 2018).
  • Scripture: Romans 16:1–2; 1 Timothy 3:11.