In the early Church, deaconesses were almost all widows or unmarried women “of an age”. They were not (and are not) ordained in the same sense that priests and male deacons are, rather they were “consecrated” somewhat like readers and altar boys are. Their role was very limited, mostly to ministering to women because cultural taboos of the time forbade priests and male from touching women. Some local Orthodox Churches today do have deaconesses, mostly the Slavic Churches, though Greece reinstituted the order in 2011. The women, always unmarried, serve so far as I know only in women’s monasteries, usually isolated ones at that. They can perform certain sacramental functions like anointing the sick nuns and giving communion which has already been consecrated to nuns. They also may have some administrative role under the gerondas. I have been told that in Russia some work in women’s hospitals, I assume in the same roles.
There are very few of these deaconesses; none here in No. America, none in the ME, No. Africa or among the Ethiopians so far as I know.
Given the mindset of the modern Latin Church and of the Western laity, I trust you folks will stay far, far away from this.
Yeah, it can be a pretty weird environment!
Dave Armstrong responded to the news yesterday with a fairly in depth look back at the role of the deaconess in the early church.
With regard to the duration of the order of deaconesses we note that when adult baptism became uncommon, this institution, which seems primarily to have been devised for the needs of women catechumens, gradually waned and in the end died out altogether. In the time of Justinian (d. 565) the deaconesses still held a position of importance. At the church of St. Sophia in Constantinople the staff consisted of sixty priests, one hundred deacons, forty deaconesses, and ninety subdeacons; . . .We cannot be sure that any formal recognition of deaconesses as an institution of consecrated women aiding the clergy is to be found in the New Testament. There is indeed the mention of Phebe (Romans 16:1), who is called diakonos but this may simply mean, as the Vulgate renders it, that she was “in the ministry [i.e. service] of the Church”, without implying any official status. Again, it is not improbable that the “widows” who are spoken of at large in 1 Timothy 5:3-10, may really have been deaconesses, but here again we have nothing conclusive. . . . In any case there can be no question that before the middle of the fourth century women were permitted to exercise certain definite functions in the Church and were known by the special name of diakonoi or diakonissai.
The universal prevalence of baptism by immersion and the anointing of the whole body which preceded it, rendered it a matter of propriety that in this ceremony the functions of the deacons should be discharged by women. The Didascalia Apostolorum (III, 12; see Funk, Didascalia, etc., I, 208) explicitly direct that the deaconesses are to perform this function. It is probable that this was the starting point for the intervention of women in many other ritual observances even in the sanctuary. The Apostolic Constitutions expressly attribute to them the duty of guarding the doors and maintaining order amongst those of their own sex in the church, and they also (II, c. 26) assign to them the office of acting as intermediaries between the clergy and the women of the congregation; . . .
Are Deaconesses Inconceivable? No. - More detailed history with corresponding links at the site.
tax-chick - though not related to this topic, I wanted to share the following beautiful procession in Spain with a statue of Our Lady of Fatima. LINK. Since you speak Spanish, perhaps you can share an English translation of the lyrics.