Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 35:1 (Winter 2021)
Article: Ordained Women In The Church
Author: Christine Marchetti

PP 35:1 (Winter 2021) p. 15

Ordained Women In The Church

Christine Marchetti

Christine Marchetti is an adjunct professor of Religious Studies. She teaches at Northwestern Connecticut Community College in Winsted and has served as a professor and thesis adviser at Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut. Christine is also an adult education instructor for Middlesex Community College’s MILE Program. She has an MA from Hartford Seminary in Hartford, Connecticut, and a BA in theology from St. Joseph’s College of Maine.

Women today have proven themselves successful in medicine, law, and virtually all other professions. Why, then, do certain churches refuse to ordain them? Some churches claim that ordaining women would be contrary to tradition and Scripture. Men, they say, have led the church for centuries, but female clergy are a relatively new phenomenon, one that reflects the influence of secular humanism and modernism, not orthodox teaching. However, this argument ignores the facts. Indeed, a Roman Catholic—hence complementarian—commission recently acknowledged a long history of women deacons in the church,1 and their findings merely echo conclusions previously published by several researchers. A consensus of scholars concludes that women were ordained deacons, presbyters, and bishops in the church through the Middle Ages.

This paper will discuss the ordination of women deacons and presbyters in the Eastern and Western churches from the second century through the sixth. The continued ministries of female deacons, presbyters, and bishops in the West through the eleventh century will be studied, and the meaning of “ordination” will be examined briefly, as the ordination of men and women in the early and medieval church was not necessarily defined in the same way it is today.2 Finally, the question of why women’s ministries were curtailed will be addressed with a short survey of the views of various scholars on the subject.

Ordained Women In Scripture

The first woman in church history to be called “deacon” is Phoebe in Paul’s letter to the Romans. Paul writes that Phoebe was a deacon of the church at Cenchreae (16:1). The Greek word for deacon is diakonos; it means “helper” or “minister.”3 In Paul’s general usage, the term describes the ministry of Jesus (Rom 15:8), Paul’s fellow servants, and Paul himself (Rom 15:25), all of whom preached and ministered to others. Paul attributes the same role to Phoebe.