Response to the St. Phoebe Center for the Deaconess' Proposed Guidelines for the Revival of the Female Diaconate in the Orthodox Church Today

This is the text for my comments to the January 11th event by the St. Phoebe Center for the Deaconess gathering feedback for their proposed guidelines.

When I first started attending an Orthodox church in 2011, I was finishing up a Master’s degree in Christian Education at a protestant seminary, and slowly accepting that I probably was not going to be serving a church in any ordained, professional capacity. I had considered ordination as a deacon in the Episcopal Church, and then the United Methodist Church, but I knew that wasn’t where my heart was anymore, and I was being pulled elsewhere. In an inquirer’s class, a member of the OCA parish I was visiting called women clergy “heresy” in a horrified tone of voice, and I was concerned about what that meant for the Orthodox Church’s view of my gender and my capacity to serve.

When I asked the priest who would later welcome me into the church through Chrismation, if women clergy were “heresy”, and I told him about my previous plans to pursue ordination, he enthusiastically told me that deaconesses had a place in the ancient church, and there were some who felt they should have a place to…