The
Ministry of Women Deacons
In the early years of
Christianity, women who were designated deacons probably did the same thing
that men designated as deacons did. Diakonos in Greek just means
“servant,” and so the “servants” of the Church did the service jobs. They took
care of the poor, visited the sick and those in prison, and generally looked to
the upkeep of the fabric of the Church. It probably wasn’t an “order” in the
way we think of it at all. It was a job description; these were the people
chosen by the community to handle what we might call “social services.” (Gary
Macy, “Women Deacons: History,” in Women Deacons: Past, Present, Future,
ed. Susan A. Ross [Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 2011], 23, emphasis in bold added)
