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Called to holiness and ministry
by Dr. Kiriaki Karidoyanes FitzGerald
To contact the author, email to: diaconia@netscape.net.
Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1998; ISBN 1-885652-22-4
(pbk.)
This is a wonderful book, academically reliable as well as spiritually
profound. It provides many data on the history of women deacons and discusses
the issue of their sacramental ordination. Written from an Orthodox point of
view, it is eminently ‘Catholic’ in its feel. It is the best book on
women deacons I have seen.
TABLE OF CONTENTS (with some of my comments)
*
Letter from His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew
*
Preface
*
Prologue by Evangelos Theodorou
Prof. Theodorou is the pioneer theologian who from the 1930s declared
that women deacons had been validly ordained.
Chapter 1. Early Development
Traces the earliest history of women deacons in Scripture and writings
of the Early Fathers.
Chapter 2. The Identity of the Deaconess
Reconstructs the tasks of the woman deacon as found in the
Didascalia and the Apostolic Constitutions.
Chapter 3. The Witness of the Women Deacon Saints
Describes the work and life of the woman deacon as it becomes evident
from hagiographical testimony. Unique and absorbing data!
Chapter 4. The Charism of Women Deacons: The Apostolic Constitutions
Rite
An analysis of the earliest extant ordination rite, the rite found in
the Didascalia, compared to sayings from contemporary Fathers of the
Church.
Chapter 5. The Charism of Women Deacons: The
Byzantine Ordination Rite
A detailed theological and liturgical assessment of the ordination
rite used for 6 centuries by the universal Church.
Chapter 6. The Ordination Issue
A report on the two opposing views of prominent Orthodox theologians:
Prof. John Karmiris who maintains that women deacons were merely
‘installed’ and Prof. Evangelos Theodorou who maintains they were
sacramentally ordained. The reasons why the author believes Theodorou is right.
A chapter with wonderfully perceptive discernment.
Chapter 7. The Decline of the Order
A description of the many factors that may have contributed to the
decline of women deacons in the West and the East.
Chapter 8. Towards the Restoration of the Order
of Women Deacons
The history of the re-discovery of women deacons by both theologians
and Church leaders in the Orthodox Church.
Chapter 9. Women Deacons: Ecclesial Memory or
Spiritual Opportunity?
A plea to restore women's diaconate fully, for the sake of Christ's
Church.
* A
Concluding Commentary
*
Appendix A. A Partial list of Women Deacon Saints
Very interesting! Twenty-two Women Deacon Saints listed by name.
*
Appendix B. The Byzantine Ordination Rite of the Deaconess
*
Appendix C. Excerpts from The Place of Woman in the Orthodox Church and the
Question of the Ordination of Women
Texts from the Inter-Orthodox Theological Consultation, Rhodes
1988.
*
Appendix D. Discerning the ‘Signs of the Times’ Women in the Life
of the Orthodox Church, Damascus 1996
*
Appendix E. Discerning the ‘Signs of the Times’ Women in the Life
of the Orthodox Church, Istanbul 1997
The book can be ordered from:
Holy Cross Orthodox Press,
50 Goddard Avenue,
Brookline, MA
02445,
USA.
Tel.: +1 - 617 - 731 3500.
Email: hcbks@hchc.edu.
ISBN 1-885652-22-4 (pbk.)
Price $ 14.94.
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