Word Finder - deacons

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(Church history) A designated minister of charity in the early Church (see Acts 6:1-6).

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(Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism) A clergyman ranked directly below a priest, with duties of helping the priests and carrying out parish work.

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Free Churches: A lay leader of a congregation who assists the pastor.

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Anglicanism: An ordained clergyman usually serving a year prior to being ordained presbyter, though in some cases they remain a permanent deacon.

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Methodism: A separate office from that of minister, neither leading to the other; instead there is a permanent deaconate.

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A junior lodge officer.

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The lowest office in the Aaronic priesthood, generally held by 12 or 13 year old boys or recent converts.

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(animal husbandry) A male calf of a dairy breed, so called because they are usually deaconed (see below).

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The chairman of an incorporated company.

The orders of the ministry are bishops, presbyters, deacons.

The bishop has acquired control of the sacraments, presbyters and deacons acting only under his orders; the episcopate appears as a unit, bishops being bound to respect one another's disciplinary decrees.

The elders are the first or oldest teachers of congregations, for which there is no regular bishop. They have charge of the meetings of such congregations, and participate in excommunication proceedings, besides which they preach, exhort, baptize, and may, when needed, take the offices of the deacons.

The tenth canon tolerates the marriages of deacons who previous to ordination had reserved the right to take a wife; the thirteenth forbids chorepiscopi to ordain presbyters or deacons; the eighteenth safeguards the right of the people in objecting to the appointment of a bishop whom they do not wish.

With the exception of the pallium, this was also the costume of the Roman deacons.

The word of God is to be freely and truthfully preached by the priests of the Lord, and by worthy deacons.

At first this local ministry was twofold, consisting of presbyters or bishops and deacons.

These are 46 presbyters, 7 deacons, 7 subdeacons, 42 acolytes, 52 exorcists and readers, together with doorkeepers.

Therein we are told that the threefold ministry of bishops, priests and deacons may be traced back to apostolic times, and in the final revision of 1662 a clause was added to the effect that no one is to be accounted " a lawful bishop, priest or deacon in the Church of England," unless he has had episcopal consecration or ordination.

The constant practice has been to reordain unconditionally Anglican priests and deacons.

Appoint therefore unto yourselves bishops and deacons, worthy of the Lord, men meek and uncovetous, and true and approved; for they also minister unto you the ministration of the prophets and teachers.

Election took the place of ordination, but even here the Lombards showed their difference from the Ultramontanes, and recognized only two orders, like the Cathari, while the northern body kept the old three orders of bishops, priests and deacons.

Each normal church had its own bishop or pastor, as well as its presbytery and body of deacons.

It advocated " the polity that our Saviour Jesus Christ hath established," with " pastors, superintendes, deacons "; so that " all true pastors have equal power and authority.

The fusion into one office of the functions of " elders " and " deacons " (still distinguished in the Savoy Declaration of 1658) was partly at least a symptom of the decay of the church-idea in its original fulness, a decay itself connected with the general decline in spiritual intensity which maiked 18th-century religion, after the overstrain of the preceding age.

The stole is worn immediately over the alb; by deacons, scarf-wise over the left shoulder, across the breast and back to the right side; by priests and bishops, dependent from the neck, the two ends falling over the breast.

In southern Italy, probably under Greek influence, and in Milan (where the custom still survives) the diaconal stole was put on over the dalmatic. Similarly in Spain and Gaul, anterior to the Carolingian age, the stole was worn by deacons over the alba or outer tunic.

The custom of giving the stole to priests and deacons at their ordination is of great antiquity.

The stole of the deacons is mentioned so early as the 4th and 5th centuries, the first instance being in the 22nd canon of the council of Laodicea, where it is mentioned specifically as the insignia of a deacon.

It is quite certain that from the 3rd century onward there existed in the Eastern Church an order of women, known as deaconesses, who filled a position analogous to that of deacons.

Ignatius bears witness to the presence in various Churches of Asia Minor of a single bishop in control, with whom are associated as his subordinates a number of elders and deacons.

While Jacob of Edessa is said to have ordained some 100,000 priests and deacons for his fellow-believers, in the 16th century the Jacobites of Syria were estimated at only 50,000 families.

Deacons and preachers make engagements seven or eight years in advance.

The moment of transition is clearly marked in the Didache, where the charismatic ministry of " apostles and prophets " is beginning to give place to permanent local officials of the Church, bishops, presbyters and deacons.

On the other hand, it was also in Asia Minor that there appeared along with Montanus those energetic prophetesses who charged the churches and their bishops and deacons with becoming secularized, and endeavoured to prevent Christianity from being naturalized in the world, and to bring the churches once more under the exclusive guidance of the Spirit and His charismata.

They appointed their first-fruits, having tested them by the Spirit, as bishops and deacons of those who should believe..

By the 13th century, with the final development of the ritual of the Mass, the chasuble became definitely fixed as the vestment of the celebrating priest; though to this day in the Roman Church relics of the earlier general use of the chasuble survive in the planeta plicata worn by deacons and subdeacons in Lent and Advent, and other penitential seasons.

The care taken in the selecting and ordaining of the seven deacons argues a religious character for the common meals, which they were to serve.

Their main duty was to look after the duty of the Hellenistic widows, but inasmuch as meats strangled or consecrated to idols were forbidden, it probably devolved on the deacons to take care that such were not introduced at these common meals.

Bishops and deacons hold a subordinate place in this document; but the contemporary Epistle of Clement of Rome attests that these bishops " had offered the gifts without blame and holily."

And when the president has given thanks, and all the people have so answered, those who are called by us deacons distribute to each of those present, for them to partake of the bread (and wine) 8 and water, for which thanks have been given, and they carry portions away to those who are not present.

In the West the high altar was moved to the east end (the presbyterium) with a space before it for the assisting deacons and subdeacons (the chancel proper) railed off as a spot peculiarly holy (now usually called the sanctuary); between this and the nave, where the laity were, was the choir, with seats for the clergy on either side.

The old Roman clergy, the deacons and priests of the church at Rome (presbyteri incardinati, cardinales) formed the pope's council, and when necessary his tribunal; to them were usually added the bishops of the neighbourhood.

The number of cardinals was fixed at seventy - six bishops, fifty priests and fourteen deacons.

According to the general supposition, the negotiations which led to the excommunication of Arius and his followers among the presbyters and deacons took place in 318 or 319, but there are good reasons for assigning the outbreak of the controversy to the time following the overthrow of Licinius by Constantine, i.e.

It insists on the erection of fonts; on distinction of grades among the ordained clergy; on not postponing baptism too long; on bishops and priests alone, and not deacons, being allowed to baptize and lay hands on or confirm the baptized; on avoiding communion with Arians; on the use of unleavened bread in the Sacrament, &c. We learn from it that the bishop of Basen and Bagrevand was an Arian at that time.

There were also deacons, half-deacons and readers.

If this be so, it was probably given to the Roman deacons to distinguish them from the other clergy and to mark their special relations to the pope.

However this may be, the dalmatic remained for centuries the vestment distinctive of the pope and his deacons, and - according at least to the view held at Rome - could be worn by other clergy only by special concession of the pope.

Thus Pope Symmachus (498-514) granted the right to wear it to the deacons of Bishop Caesarius of Arles; and so late as 757 Pope Stephen II.

In the Eastern churches the only vestment that has any true analogy with the dalmatic or liturgical upper tunic is the sakkos, the tunic worn by deacons and subdeacons over their everyday clothes being the equivalent of the Western alb.

They alone can administer the rite of confirmation, ordain priests and deacons, and exercise a certain dispensing power.

The senior members of the community, by virtue of their age and experience, watched over the conduct and guided the action of the younger and less experienced portion of the Church, though they held no official position and were not appointed for any particular work like the bishops and deacons.

The first trace of this is to be found in the Epistles of Ignatius which prove that by the year 115 "the three orders" as they were afterwards called - bishop, presbyters and deacons - already existed, not indeed universally, but in a large proportion of the churches.

The presbyters occupied an intermediate position between the bishop and the deacons.

The Didache knows nothing of the presbyters; bishops and deacons are mentioned, but there is no reference to the second order.

The letter just mentioned is the only indisputably contemporary document concerning him and was addressed to Dionysius and Maximus, respectively bishops of Rome and Alexandria, by seventy bishops, priests and deacons, who attended a synod at Antioch in 269 and deposed Paul.

Deacons, as in Armenia, marry before taking priests' orders.

In 441 a synod of sixteen bishops was held at Orange under the presidency of St Hilary of Arles, which adopted thirty canons touching the reconciliation of penitents and heretics; the ecclesiastical right of asylum, diocesan prerogatives of bishops, spiritual privileges of the defective or demoniac, the deportment of catechumens at worship, and clerical celibacy (forbidding married men to be ordained as deacons, and digamists to be advanced beyond the sub-diaconate).

They were parish ministers and subject like their brethren to church courts; their added function was to plant churches, and place ministers, elders and deacons where required.