Ecumenical Discussion about Deacons

Ecclesiology, 2012

This article explores the latest developments of the deacon’s ministry in the churches of the Porvoo communion, based on the Anglican-Lutheran regional agreement of 1996, the Porvoo Declaration and the Porvoo Common Statement. In the Porvoo Declaration the signatory churches agreed on a common commitment to work towards a common understanding of diaconal ministry. The article analyses the understanding of the deacon’s ministry in the Porvoo churches as expressed in their liturgical acts of admission to this ministry and their educational requirements for deacons. Special attention is paid to the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Denmark and its contribution to the common understanding of deacon’s ministry in the Porvoo communion, as that church has recently signed the agreement.

Quarterly Review, 1999

This was the first academic journal article I wrote, and for some reason I've never put it up on academia.edu. It represents my first attempt at providing a theology of the United Methodist diaconate when I was still a seminary student at Boston University School of Theology. It engages with the ecumenical experience of the diaconate in the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Episcopal churches and looks especially to liturgical expressions of Christian eschatology for some hints of what a theology of the diaconate might entail. The United Methodist (permanent) diaconate was instituted just three years prior to me writing this article.

ORGANIZED by: Symposium subjects: • The Rejuvenation of the Order of Deaconesses • Biblical, liturgical, Patristic, archeological canonical, theological, and historical analysis • Critical theological assessment of the recent developments in the Orthodox and other Churches

2004

The writing of this paper is motivated not only by questions related to the ministry of permanent deacons in our diocese but also by the need to comprehend, in the first place, the nature and the broader sense of our Anglican Church’s diaconal ministry, be it at diocesan, parish or organisations’ level. To be more specific, I want to grasp the full dimension of “diakonia” or service which is central to the nature of the universal and local Church. Every aspect of the Church is service to God and to humankind. The Church's deepest nature is expressed in her three-fold charge: “kerygma-martyria” - proclaiming the word of God; “leitourgia” - celebrating the Sacraments; “diakonia” - exercising the ministry of charity. In this paper it is the third aspect, diakonia, that I intend to concentrate on without disconnecting completely from the other two. Deacon’s ministry will stand out in very special ways and bear much fruit if diakonia is the embedded characteristic of our Church alongside martyria and leitourgia.

In the recent years there has been much debate in both Orthodox and Catholic circles concerning the nature and role of the deaconess. First, was the deaconess “ordained”? And second, can such an ordination be thought of in modern terms of ordination? Unfortunately, on such a contentious topic as this the debate has been muddled by preconceptions concerning what an ordination is and what it means. Therefore, the interpretation of the primary texts has suffered under these preconceptions, leading to confusion on all sides. By sorting through these issues I hope to clarify the position of Orthodox canon law and practice on the ordination of deaconesses. This clarity will enable a more productive understanding of what the roles and functions of deaconesses would be if the office was reactivated today

2014

2014

The question of ministry is always the key issue in the ecumenical doctrinal dialogues. During past half a century the Churches and Ecclesial Communities engaged in the biand multilateral dialogues elaborated quite a number of documents of various importance. Many of them contained the reflection on ministry as existing now in the Churches. Hereafter we will look inside the Vatican II’s Decree on ecumenism and into the latest Faith and Order document: The Church: Towards a Common Vision1 to trace there any proposals for possible reconciliation of ministries that could lead to its mutual recognition by dialoguing parties. In between the two we will also take a glance at the possible solutions, offered on nowadays market of theological ideas.

2020

The aim of this presentation was to examine how the tasks of deacons are portrayed by the author(s) of the works traditionally attributed to Cyril of Jerusalem (c. 315–387). The investigation was based on a survey of words of the διακον- group that appear in the Cyrilline corpus. The eight occurrences of these words were organized into three categories: 1. general uses of the διακον- words 2. the διάκονοι and Christian initiation 3. the διάκονος and the eucharistic liturgy The examination revealed that for the Cyrilline author(s), the ecclesiastical tasks of deacons are inseparably connected with the sacramental life of the church. Instead of explicitly giving deacons caritative tasks associated with diakonia in the modern protestant sense, the sources depict their role mainly as liturgical.