Do Coptic Catholics have female Deacons?

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bighodag said:
Thank you for bringing up anastasis.org.uk.

Yes, the opening prayer is the same.

Yes, it takes place at the same point in the ceremony.

Yes, the deaconess is vested with the Orarion.

Yes, the same word CHRIOTONIA is used.

But, there is one key difference which is generally overlooked: the prayer of consecration. The prayer differs between males and females. Male deacons are consecrated “to become ministers and to assist in the service of your most pure Mysteries” while female deaconesses are consecrated “to the work of your service”.

You’ll find the two prayers on Anastasis.

It took me a while to figure that diffference in the Order for Ordination. Its important for all Catholic apologists to know as the Roman Catholic Womenpriests like to tout the existance of a rite of ordination for women deacons as part of their supporting ‘evidence’. The RCWP just seem to omit that there is a critical difference as to what women deaconesses were/are ordained to do (service) as opposed to what male deacons are ordained to do (ministers and assist in the Mysteries). I wrote a blog post on the critical difference in the two ceremonies.

God bless…
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I also found this from New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia on Deaconesses
Comparing this form with that given in the same work with that for the ordination of deacons we may notice that the reference to the outpouring of Holy Ghost in the latter case is much more strongly worded: “fill him with the spirit and with power as thou didst fill Stephen the martyr and follower of the sufferings of thy Christ”. Moreover, in the case of the deacon, prayer is made that he “may be counted worthy of a higher standing”, a clause which not improbably has reference to the possibility of advance to a higher ecclesiastical dignity as priest or bishop, no such praise being used in the case of the deaconess.
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I think you will find that the plans have been put on the backburner with even the pilot light extinguished. If that goes anywhere soon, I will eat my hat.
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They were never big plans. The entire thing revolves around female assistants in convents being consecrated (nice, neutral word) deaconnesses.

It was never intended to return to the main stream, but deaconnesses do exist. And, just for clarity, the Russians won’t have it.
 
ASimpleSinner said:
What the DoT does have - more than I ever knew or saw growing up - is a bumper crop of young, apple cheeked all-American seminarians… Things are looking up in the Glass City.
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It’s funny that you would mention that, because today our parish seminarian has been ordained as a transitional deacon.

Because of the nature of this thread, perhaps I should clarify that our seminarian is indeed a man. 😃
 
Servus_Pio_XII said:
They were never big plans. The entire thing revolves around female assistants in convents being consecrated (nice, neutral word) deaconnesses.

It was never intended to return to the main stream, but deaconnesses do exist. And, just for clarity, the Russians won’t have it.
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Unless you get a hold of Father Ambrose - the more we disliked the idea, the more necessary he thought it surely was!

SP12, the exact extent of the plans - big or small - seems to now be a moot issue. For the most part, in reading the work of an author that was offered to the bishops before the synod voted on the matter, I can’t wholly accept that they were only intending for some nuns to be consecrated. That Dr. Valerie A. Karras was only looking to get the restoration of female, over-40 “proto-acolytes” restored to use in some out of the way monasteries is - at best - tough to swallow.

“Deaconnesses do exist” is fair enough… The question(s) is(/are) what are they and who are they and where are they? From all I can find, these days women in the Russian Church who have been called that are pretty much the “altar women” of the convent assisting in a fashion comparable to altar boys in monastic cloisters… Among the Copts, they are basically like RC religious sisters…
 
This is interesting. I have never heard of it. I only have one Coptic Catholic parish in my city (Ethiopian Coptic Catholic Church), actually it’s a mission. I didn’t know that they could have female deacons.
 
The Ethiopian tradition, while a child of the coptic one, is really its own tradition and not really the same thing as asking about coptics in my humble opinion.

Really though, the Deaconess is not the same thing as a deacon. She was a woman minister, who ministered to women in a society that highly segregated men and women.
 
Formosus said:
The Ethiopian tradition, while a child of the coptic one, is really its own tradition and not really the same thing as asking about coptics in my humble opinion.

Really though, the Deaconess is not the same thing as a deacon. She was a woman minister, who ministered to women in a society that highly segregated men and women.
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Oh, ok I understand. Just like when people were baptized naked. A women would baptize them to prevent any chance of sin. Do the Coptics still use this tradition? What about the Coptic Catholics?
 
holdencaulfield said:
This is interesting. I have never heard of it. I only have one Coptic Catholic parish in my city (Ethiopian Coptic Catholic Church), actually it’s a mission. I didn’t know that they could have female deacons.
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I assure you they do not.
 
holdencaulfield said:
So the Coptic Catholic Churches to not. What about the Coptic Churches that are not in Communion with Rome?
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HC -

Please read through the entirety of the thread and take a look at the links posted - this has already been covered.

In Lat-Speak

Coptic Nun = Contemplative Nun
Coptic Deaconess = Active Religious Sister

Go back and take a look at the article on the matter I posted earlier… It has photographs of these “Deaconesses” which are paramonastic sisters that go out into the world to engaged in social ministries. Their habits remind me of the Catholic Little Sisters of the Poor.

AT least scan the articles and links - we have covered all of this.
 
To Simple Sinner, You stated that the Greek church is considering women deacons. Is this true? that would be wonderful. Do you know more about this? Maybe it would extend to the R.C. church as well someday.
 
Victoria2 said:
[To Simple Sinner, You stated that the Greek church is considering women deacons. Is this true? that would be wonderful. Do you know more about this? Maybe it would extend to the R.C. church as well someday.
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Why is that wonderful? I say that as someone who supports it, but suspicious of why others do.

The Japanese Orthodox Church from its inception in the later half of the nineteenth century had some deaconesses. Japan’s first bishop, St. Nicholas Kasatkin, had a number of deaconesses during his tenure.

At the same time, the Russian Orthodox Church, Japan’s mother Church, had deaconesses. It seems from the scant material available that the Russian Church has always had deaconesses.

The Church of Greece has had deaconesses intermittently over the recent centuries, and appears to have usually had deaconesses in its female monasteries from time immemorial. In 2004 the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece officially restored the female diaconate.[1]

The Russian Orthodox Church still has deaconesses.[2]

In female monasteries the role of a deaconess seems necessary for the good order and function of the monastery church. It is more seemly than having male deacons involved there.

In 2006, the larger Bulgarian and Romanian monasteries have a deaconess who is usually second in charge. In Romania they wear distinctive garb while performing diaconal duties.

orthodoxwiki.org/Deaconess

Btw, St. Nektarios of Aegina had deaconesses, which caused a stir at the time in the CoG. And btw, he was before that a bishop in Egypt.
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