Deacon
A deacon is an ordained minister of the Church of England and the Anglican Communion, belonging to the diaconate — the first and lowest of the three historic orders of ministry, bishops, priests, and deacons, which Anglicans hold to have been handed down in unbroken Apostolic Succession from the apostles. The word deacon comes from the Greek diakonos, meaning a servant, and service — to the bishop, to the congregation, and to the poor — remains the defining mark of the office.
Origins
The traditional scriptural origin of the diaconate is found in Acts 6, which describes the appointment of the Seven in the Jerusalem church. The apostles lay hands on the Seven and set them apart for the daily distribution of alms, while reserving to themselves "the ministry of the word." The text does not itself call these men deacons — it describes them as appointed to serve tables — but the Church's traditional reading identifies them with the diaconate, seeing in their commission the pattern of a distinct ministry of service. The Epistles soon speak of deacons alongside overseers (Philippians 1:1), and 1 Timothy 3 sets out the qualifications expected of those who hold the office.
In the early Church the diaconate grew in importance. Deacons served as the bishop's deputies in practical administration, dispensing the church's alms, keeping order in the liturgy, and carrying messages between congregations. The archdeacon, the bishop's chief deacon, became one of the most powerful figures in the diocesan administration. By the Middle Ages, however, the distinct vocation of the deacon had largely faded: the office survived almost everywhere as a short, transitional stage on the way to priesthood, with candidates typically spending about a year in the diaconate before ordination as priests. That transitional pattern has remained the norm in the Church of England ever since.
The office in the 1662 Ordinal
The Form and Manner of Making of Deacons in the Ordinal of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer sets out the deacon's office with unusual precision. In the bishop's examination of the candidates, he declares what "appertaineth to the Office of a Deacon, in the Church where he shall be appointed to serve": to assist the priest in divine service, "and specially when he ministereth the holy Communion, and to help him in the distribution thereof"; to read Holy Scriptures and Homilies in the church; to instruct the youth in the Catechism; in the absence of the priest to baptize infants; and to preach, if admitted thereto by the bishop. Beyond these liturgical and teaching duties, the Ordinal gives the deacon a pastoral charge: where provision is made, he is to search out the sick, poor, and impotent people of the parish, and to intimate their names, estates, and dwelling places to the curate, so that by his exhortation they may be relieved with the alms of the parishioners.
Two features of this description deserve notice. First, the deacon assists rather than presides: the ministry of Holy Communion and the administration of Baptism in the ordinary case belong to the priest, and the deacon acts at the edge of these ministries, supporting them and supplying them in necessity. Second, the Ordinal ties the deacon's office to the parish poor. The care of the sick and needy is not a sideline but a stated part of the office, reflecting the memory of the Seven of Acts 6.
Transitional and permanent diaconate
Because the diaconate had become a stepping-stone to the priesthood, Anglicans traditionally distinguish the transitional diaconate — the year (or longer) that candidates for the priesthood spend as deacons — from the permanent or vocational diaconate, in which the order is exercised as a lifelong calling. The idea that the diaconate could again be a full and equal order in its own right was recovered in the twentieth century, as theologians and bishops argued that the Ordinal's description of the office was too rich to be read as a mere apprenticeship. Modern practice in the Anglican Communion therefore includes both patterns: most priests pass through the diaconate, while a smaller number of men and women are ordained deacon with no intention of proceeding to priesthood, and serve a distinctive ministry of service, word, and pastoral care.
Deaconesses and women deacons
Alongside the ordained diaconate, the Church of England revived the ancient office of deaconess in the nineteenth century. Elizabeth Ferard, who had trained among the deaconess community at Kaiserswerth in Germany, was set apart by Bishop Tait of London in 1862 as the first deaconess in the Church of England, devoting herself with the London Deaconess Institution to the care of the sick and poor and the education of the young. The deaconess order remained the only ministry of women set apart by prayer and the laying on of hands for more than a century. In 1987 the order of deaconess was closed to new recruits and women were admitted to the ordained diaconate itself, becoming the first women in the Church of England to be ordained to holy orders.
See also
References
- The Book of Common Prayer (1662), the Ordinal.
- James Monroe Barnett, The Diaconate: A Full and Equal Order, Trinity Press International, rev. ed. 1995.