Diaconal Ministry - Part 2

Click here for Part 1 of this series on the Diaconate. 

The transitional diaconate, a period of training within a parish, has been in place for many years, while the vocational diaconate died out in the first century. An ordination to the Sacred Order of Deacons meant a period of training within a parish, usually from 6 months to a year, and leading to ordination to the priesthood. This was, and still is, true of both the Roman Catholic as well as the Episcopal Church. Our Lutheran brethren have no such order, and other mainline Protestant denominations consider deacons to be an office rather than a clerical order.

Beginning in the 1840's and extending to the 1930's, the Episcopal Church ordained men to serve as missionaries to isolated areas and indigenous people. They remained deacons for the duration of their ministries. From 1885 through 1970, Episcopal bishops "set apart" women as deaconesses, by prayer, but occasionally by the laying on of hands, to care for the sick, the poor and the needy.  (A community of deaconesses served in the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia, educating the children of miners through the late 1960's). Men were ordained from 1952-1970 as "perpetual deacons", to serve parishes as sacramental and pastoral assistants in the booming post WWII church. These were generally older men serving in their home parishes and were not deployed to other parishes. They were trained and supervised by their parish priest.

Vatican II renewed the "permanent diaconate" as a permanent position for men, including those who were married.  The Episcopal Church renewed the order of deacon in 1970, and citing the biblical record, for the first time allowed women to be ordained as deacons. The remaining Episcopal deaconesses were then deemed deacons, and the office of deaconess was abolished by canon law. After much debate, the traditional period of temporary transitional diaconate prior to priesthood was also retained.

Beginning in 1971, vocational deacons generally served in social care ministries outside of a parish. Some of these were women who were seminary trained with a priestly call. Many others, both men and women, had a liturgical base in a parish, with their identities firmly based on their work outside the church.

The ordination of women to the priesthood, approved in 1976, led the way for the vocational diaconate to mature into its own identity, as the different calls to ordained ministry were recognized during periods of discernment. Whether a transitional or a vocational deacon, ordination is to word and service. (Only priests are ordained to the sacraments of absolution, blessing and consecration). The difference at that point is that vocational deacons are to earn their living in the world, while a transitional deacon is employed by the church from the beginning of their ordained life, and the emphasis is on training for the priesthood.

Many vocational deacons work in social or institutional ministries---counseling, school, college, hospital or prison, police, fire  department chaplaincies; HIV/AIDS, domestic violence and rape crisis agencies; working with the homeless, the addicted, refugees, at risk children.  Other sell insurance or real estate, teach school, work in offices as administrators, newspaper reporters or are musicians. My daughter-in-law Elissa's father, John Earl, is both a vocational deacon and a family practice physician, providing free healthcare to those unable to pay, or without health insurance.

There are instances of deacons working in the church professionally, highly trained in areas of diocesan leadership, counseling, pastoral care, Christian education, youth or college ministries, or administering social action ministries.  It is the work of a deacon within a parish to enlist, train, and support the baptized in ministries of care, or to lead the church's efforts in social action and justice issues.

A deacon working in the world, ministering to "those whom it is easy to forget", is charged with bringing the concerns of the world to the church, and inviting a response.  The church in any time, is called to be the conscience of our world, and to speak truth to power, while taking the Good News of Jesus Christ and His love to a broken world.

Katherine T. Gray, Chaplain, Riverside Hospice