DEACONESS. – Deaconesses were Christian widows to whom liturgical and charitable tasks were entrusted in the early Church.
Already St. Paul (*Rom.* 16:1) mentions a deaconess, Phoebe of Cenchreae, whose office is probably also recalled in *1 Tim.* 3:11. *1 Tim.* 5:9–16 seems to enumerate the qualities necessary for a deaconess among the widows to be honored (one marriage only, 60 years of age). St. Ignatius (*Smyrn.* 13) besides widows also knows of virgins admitted to the office of deaconess; later, married women were also admitted, provided they lived in continence and enjoyed high esteem (Epiphanius, *Expos. fidei*, 21). Toward the end of the 3rd century, the *Didascalia*, III, reduced the prescribed age from 60 to 50 years; the Council of Chalcedon (451) and the Trullan Council (692) required only 40. Widows of subsequent bigamy remained always excluded from the office.
To ensure deaconesses greater grace and to give their office greater importance, they were granted a special blessing, also called ordination, which later resembled that of deacons; the bishop imposed hands and with prayer invoked the Holy Spirit “ad digne perficiendum munus sibi commissum.” This blessing, already mentioned in the *Apostolic Tradition* of St. Hippolytus and in the *Apostolic Constitutions*, 8:19, was one of the sacramentals but not a sacrament (Council of Nicaea I, canon 19). In the ancient rituals of the Greek Church, the blessing of deaconesses, like that of deacons, is called *cheirotonia*. Like deacons, they received the stole and the chalice, with which they could communicate at the altar and place it thereon (*J. Morinus, De sacris Eccl. Ordinationibus*, Paris 1655, pp. 182–92, especially pp. 69, 80, 99).
The legislation of Christian emperors counted deaconesses among the clergy, yet the Eastern Church has always held that the blessing of a deaconess did not confer spiritual power (as, for example, the Constitution of the Egyptian Church, chaps. 37 and 47; the *Didascalia* cited, chaps. 14 and 15; the Council of Laodicea, chaps. 11; Epiphanius, *Adv. haer.*, 79:3; *Const. Apost.*, III, 9:3; Ambrosiaster, *In 1 Tim.*, 3:11; PL 17, 470).
The offices and services of deaconesses were partly liturgical. They assisted in the prebaptismal catechesis of women and in their baptism, kept watch at the entrance to churches on the women’s side, transmitted the bishop’s orders to the female members of the community, and especially cared for the poor, the sick, and the imprisoned, performing the duties of visitation in homes. Their duties varied in different Churches. Among the Syrians and Nestorians they also had the privilege of distributing the Eucharist to women and children. Their relationship with Christian widows is not yet fully clarified. Originally, they seem to have been an ascetical and charitable institution of the Church, but already in the 3rd century, first in Syria and then in the Eastern Church, they became two distinct institutions. When in the West the missionary period and adult baptism ceased, the institution of deaconesses also disappeared.
For Protestant deaconesses, see **DEACON** and **DEACONESS (Protestant)**.