Word Finder - deaconess

definition

A female deacon.

definition

A female servant in the early Christian church.

definition

The nun in charge of the altar in a convent.

definition

One of an order of women in some Protestant churches who nurse the sick and tend the poor.

It has received the sanction of Convocation, and the Lambeth Conference in 1897 declared that it "recognized with thankfulness the revival of the office of deaconess," though at the same time it protested against the indiscriminate use of the title and laid it down emphatically that the name must be restricted to those who had been definitely set apart by the bishop for the position and were working under the direct supervision and control of the ecclesiastical authority in the parish.

Among the charitable institutions are the Dayton state hospital (for the insane), the Miami Valley and the St Elizabeth hospitals, the Christian Deaconess, the Widows' and the Children's homes, and the Door of Hope (for homeless girls); and 1 m.

In the middle ages the order fell into abeyance in both divisions of the Church, the abbess taking the place of the deaconess.

In 1861 Bishop Tait set apart Miss Elizabeth Ferard as a deaconess by the laying on of hands, and she became the first president of the London Deaconess Institution.

Among the hospitals are a state hospital for the insane, the Erie county, the Buffalo general, the Children's, the United States marine (maintained by the Federal government), the German, the Homeopathic, the Women's, the German Deaconess and the Riverside hospitals, and the Buffalo hospital of the Sisters of Charity.

Above all, he both magnifies the office of the Christian ministry as a whole and alters what is said of it in detail (for example, the deaconess loses rank not a little), to make it agree with the circumstances of his day in general, and with his own ideas of fitness in particular.

Here he is usually said (but on inadequate data) to have adopted the opinion then gaining ground in favour of the celibacy of the clergy, and to have separated from his wife Theosebia, who became a deaconess in the church.

The Year-Book (1911) of the Protestant Episcopal Church of America (Anglican) mentions 18 American sisterhoods and 7 deaconess homes and training colleges.

Among the hospitals and charitable institutions are the Minneapolis city hospital, the state hospital for crippled and deformed children, and Asbury Methodist, the Northwestern, the Deaconess', the Swedish, the St Mary's, the Maternity and the St Barnabas hospitals, Bethany Home, the Catholic orphan asylum, the Washburn orphans' home, the Pillsbury House (1906) where settlement work is carried on by the Plymouth Congregational Church, and several free dispensaries.

She also became a deaconess in her local church.

The encyclical letter is accompanied by sixty-three resolutions (which include careful provision for provincial organization and the extension of the title "archbishop" to all metropolitans, a "thankful recognition of the revival of brotherhoods and sisterhoods, and of the office of deaconess," and a desire to promote friendly relations with the Eastern Churches and the various Old Catholic bodies), and the reports of the eleven committees are subjoined.