This section on Restoring The Diaconate offers articles on the history and current relevance of the ancient permanent order of Deaconess in the Church, together with a link to an excellent website all about the Deaconess, and a recommended reading list. If you are interested in serving in this ministry, please contact us via e-mail at WOMENUSA@aol.com to be put in touch with other women who have experience in this calling.

Articles

Coming soon.

Link

The Historical Orthodox Deaconess
http://www.angelfire.com/pa/deaconess

Recommended Reading:

Women Deacons in the Orthodox Church: Called to Holiness and Ministry
by Kyriaki Fitzgerald and Philip Sherard. Holy Cross Press, 1998 ISBN 1885652224

Book Description (from Amazon.com)
The role of women in the Church has been hotly debated by all Christian Churches, especially as it relates to ordained ministry. In the Orthodox Church, this conversation has focused on the existence of women's ordination to the diaconate. This book traces the development and growth of this ordained expression of ministry in the Christian East. By examining scriptural, patristic, and liturgical evidence, as well as the lives of the women saints identified as deacons, the author demonstrates that women were ordained as deacons to dynamic and evangelical ministries of prayer, teaching, pastoral care and social concern.