The Order of Widows and Deaconesses

The Order of Widows and Deaconesses

The order of widows, was a much needed ministry in a world where most women did not have access to social assistance, or one did not have adult children to care for them.  Also, it was commonplace, if not expected, that a wife would have greater longevity of life than her husband, thus creating a great unanswered need in the ancient Greco-Roman world, into which the Church was born.

The First Epistle of Saint Paul to Timothy is considered the foundational New Testament writing, for our understanding of the need of widows and how the Apostolic Church addressed that need.  We see for that one who will exercise this ministry, “must be well attested for her good works, as one who has brought up children, shown hospitality, washed the saints’ feet, helped the afflicted, and devoted herself to doing good in every way.” - 1 Timothy 5:10

The qualifications to serve in the order of widows was first, one had to be sixty years old, a widow who had married only once, and it was understood that one would not enter into a second marriage.  The widow had to have had a history of good deeds, and therefore was fit for ministry.  While often the members of the order of widows were women with material and financial means; what was of first importance was one’s devotion to the Lord and the Church, sharing in its life of prayer, charity, and virtuous living.  

Indeed, prayer seems to have been possibly the first and most important ministry of the order of widows.  The respect for these widows was drawn not only from their acts of material charity, but also for their praying with and for the Church.  Widows visited the homes of other Christians, offering comfort, fasting and prayer with the sick and elderly.  They taught young woman and new wives how to be good Christian examples in the home.  Some members of the order of widows were also prophets, and while they had no liturgical function, they were given places of honor along with the bishops, presbyters, and deacons.  Also, to show their importance in the life of the early Church, they received the Eucharist after the deacons.

The Western Church Father, Saint Ambrose of Milan wrote a treatise, “On Widows”, near the end of the fourth century.  In his writing he ranks the order of widows with professed virgins, as being more admired than those who were married.  He challenges the members of the order of widows to be chaste women of virtue; living lives of chastity, temperance, detachment from material goods and offering service to the poor. In the Christian East, where the order of widows began, they were enrolled in the order by the bishop through a detailed rite of acceptance. 

Saint John Chrysostom attests to the order of widows at Antioch near the end of the fourth century.  It was during that period of time that the order of widows is replaced by the order of deaconesses, which seemingly had begun in the middle of the third century.  

 
We see the actual overlapping of these two orders in a document called The Testament of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Here the evolution comes about by the transformation of the institution of widows, who retain the name but are in fact deaconesses. They are appointed without the imposition of hands. During the celebration of the liturgy they sit to the left of the bishop parallel with the deacons on his right. - J. Cooper and A. J. MacLean, The Testament of Our Lord, Edinburgh, 1902,I,41.

  The Patristic document known as the Didascalia Apostolorum, offers possibly the best documentation of the order of deaconesses.  Primarily, they did the ministry of the deacon for women; because of the morals of the time, it was more fitting for the deaconess to anoint the body of the newly baptized woman, while the bishop said the prayers in the midst of the gathered Church.  It was often more appropriate for a woman deaconess to visit the home of a sick female member of the Church, especially if her husband was not a Christian.  Indeed, the deaconess like the deacon was an extension of the bishop’s ministry, and took on a more formal structure than the previous order of widows.    

Today we see a revival of the order of widows and the order of deaconesses in a movement usually refereed to as consecrated widows.  Consecrated widows are mentioned specifically in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 922: “From apostolic times Christian virgins and widows, called by the Lord to cling only to him with greater freedom of heart, body and spirit, have decided with the Church's approval to live in the respective states of virginity or perpetual chastity ‘for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.’”

In the Maronite Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon of Los Angeles, Bishop Zaidan has created “Statutes for Consecrated Men and Women”, for the Eparchy.  “From it earliest days, the Church has recognized a special commitment by men and women in different stages of life…Within the Syriac tradition, the Sons and Daughters of the Covenant provided a witness to the vocation of holiness…The Church again, needs such witnesses… .” 

- Rev. David A. Fisher