Deacons
05 December 1998 11:00
This informative item about the Office of Deacon, comes from Derek Stone.
DEACONS-a meeting point between Christian East and Christian West
The Office of Deacon in the West is no longer suppressed—no longer a vestigial memory—no more a mere stepping stone to the Priesthood. It has become a permanent vocation.
For 30 years the restored Diaconate in the Catholic West has been discussed and experimented with around the world.
Concluding this tentative phase, the Vatican released an authoritative document of prescriptive norms for the ordination of Deacons in March 1998.
In my wife’s Australian Catholic diocese which has no permanent Deacons, some of the priests fear the ‘threat’ that an ordained married deacon might present. Others fear that as Deacons are `bishop’s men’, they might act as his unwelcome eyes and ears within their parish.
In one of the richest countries of the world, we hear that pathetic whinge, “How can we ever afford to pay them and support their families?”
Many dioceses other than this one, have followed the lead of the whole college of Apostles as described in Acts 6:1-7, when after Pentecost they ordained a group of elected local men as Deacons (`Ministering Servants’). The writings of the Fathers of the Church describe how up to seven served in each congregation, starting with Jerusalem and extending later to Antioch, Alexandria, Rome, Corinth, etc.
The words `Mass’ and `Missal’ come from one of the Deacon’s disciplinary duties in the Liturgy, the dismissal at the end. “Ita missa est”.
Until recently the Deacons, and they only, distributed the chalice at holy communion.
In places like Russia, Bulgaria, Iraq, Armenia and the Lebanon, they have always fulfilled most of the functions our common Tradition lays down.
Before and after worship, Deacons, paralleled by Deaconesses, have in the past handled congregational administration, finances, buildings, the digging of the catacombs, and charity to the widows, orphans and other poor.
In the early centuries of Western Europe because they administered the wealth of the church, perhaps they were allowed to become too powerful.
The discipline of the Archdeacon in the later `establishment’ diocese was often feared. As a strange relic of this the Anglicans still call one their senior diocesan priests, the Archdeacon.
The Seven Deacons of Rome became so prominent, they became a group of today’s Cardinals. By contrast to Deacons the office of Cardinal has no standing in the Holy Tradition of the Apostles at all. During Vatican II serious discussion occurred concerning the abolition of the office of Cardinal.
No historian of any seminary or university will argue against the reality and influence of Deacons in the early rapidly-expanding church—of deacon-evangelists like Stephen and Philip, or of a social-welfare martyr like Deacon Laurence of Rome in 258 a.d.
The Egyptian theologian, Athanasius, was a Deacon in 325 when he successfully challenged the world’s bishops to condemn the Arian heresy at the Council of Nicea.
Those who are concerned with liturgical music, might note the career of James, the musician-Deacon, who at the risk of his life, and for a time single-handedly, spread the Gospel while introducing Gregorian chant to the barbarian Northumbrians of England in the 650’s.
After World War 2, in a general return to Catholic Tradition, it became widely recognised that since the Middle Ages in Western Europe, Priests had not only largely taken over the Bishop’s normal role in the early church as The Pastoral Leader and Chief Celebrant at Mass; but that they had absorbed the functions of the Deacon and of the minor orders, both within and outside the Liturgy.
Paralleling the reforms of Vatican II, valiant efforts were made in Germany, France, the U.S.A. and elsewhere to return to the Holy Tradition of Apostolic Order concerning Deacons.
Except in the slower nations like Australia, Switzerland and Ireland, over the last 30 years 30,000 married and celibate Deacons have been trained and ordained, not as substitute Priests; but to do their traditional tasks.
Both the Catholic and the Orthodox communions are still far from having up to seven Deacons in each congregation. The Egyptians (Copts) and Ethiopians are those who have hung on most tenaciously to the office of Deacon.
In parts of the Orthodox East their restoration in the West has been noted as a welcome step towards ending disunity.
To a Christian world increasingly obsessed by Protestant Geneva-style democracy, G. K. Chesterton once explained, “Catholics give their ancestors the vote.”
One of those ancestors, Pope Clement, at a time when many bishops, priests and deacons were married, wrote in 58 a.d. from Rome to the church at Corinth:
“We ought to do in proper order those things which the Master has commanded us …. He has moreover, determined by whom He wants them carried out, so that all may be done in a holy manner, … acceptable to His will. … To the high priest (Bishop) proper ministrations are allotted, to the priests (Presbyters) a proper place is appointed, and upon the Levites (Deacons) their proper services are imposed. The laity are bound by the ordinances for the laity.”
Did the previous Melbourne Archbishop `give this ancestor the vote’ when his first experimental lay `Pastoral Leader’ of a parish was appointed in 1996-97?
Does the Austrian Catholic laity in their October 1998 resolution that there should be Women Deacons (as contrasted to Deaconesses who for 2000 years have had no liturgical function), ‘give Pope Clement the vote’?
Jesus as head of the Church knows. Only Jesus on His judgment day, sorts out the ‘wheat from the tares’.
In conformity with Holy Tradition, and as a positive contribution to Christian unity, after prayer, do we have the courage to put forward to our bishops for scrutiny and possible ordination, representative men as potential Deacons?
Our nominees should be married and un-married men who can fulfil their 2,000 year-old roles in the Liturgy as disciplinarians, preachers and ministering servants, while outside the Liturgy they care for the poor, serve as parish accountants, or actively evangelise for the Church Militant.
— Derek Stone, Hobart, Tasmania
