One Tradition Conveniently Forgotten

Rome asserts that from the beginning of Christianity women have never been ordained as priests. Yet, women were accepted into the diaconate which is a part of Holy Orders. The letters of Paul speak again and again of how Christian communities were led by women who were referred to by the title of diakonos, or, deacon.

• "Phoebe, our sister, who is a servant (diakonos) of the church at Cenchreae. She has often been a helper both to myself and to many others" (Romans 16, 1-2)
• "Greet Prisca and Aquila my fellow workers in Christ Jesus" . . . "Greet Mary who has worked so much among you." In the same way "Tryphaena, Tryphosa and Persis labor in the Lord."(Romans 16,1-16)
• "Evodia and Syntyche who have struggled together with me in the Gospel with Clement and the rest of my fellow-workers." (Philippians 4,2)

In the fifth century the church spelled out the distinct roles of ‘deaconesses’. Councils laid down conditions for their sacramental ordination, e.g., the Ecumenical Councils of Chalcedon and Trullo both speak of the minimum age for the ordination of women deacons as forty.

"Let the canon of our holy God-bearing Fathers be confirmed in this particular also; that a presbyter be not ordained before he is thirty years of age, even if he be a very worthy man, but let him be kept back. For our Lord Jesus Christ was baptized and began to teach when he was thirty. In like manner let no deacon be ordained before he is twenty-five, nor a deaconess before she is forty." (Council of Trullo)

Ordination rituals exist confirming that women were ordained into the diaconate. Over twenty women deacons are saints of the church. Holy Orders consists of ordination as a bishop, priest or deacon. Therefore, if women were validly ordained as deacons, they can, likewise, be ordained as priests.

Women deacons existed up until the ninth century. As adult baptisms declined so did the demand for deacons. The important role of women deacons in the early church was gradually forgotten.