Conference on Women and Diaconal Ministry

A significant conference on women and the diaconate in the Orthodox Church begins tonight in New York City at Union Theological Seminary. The conference is titled “Women and Diaconal Ministry in the Orthodox Church: Past, Present, and Future,” and features several leading scholars who have published and lectured on the role of Orthodox women in pastoral ministry. The conference is sponsored by The St. Phoebe Center for the History of the Deaconess and is held in conjunction with the Sophia Institute Conference on healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

Having recently read about the deliberations on the role of women in ministry at the Holy Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1917 and the decisions of the Church of Greece in 2004 to ordain women deacons, it seems to me that this conference is poised to unveil underdeveloped aspects of the history of women in ministry, and could inform contemporary pastoral ministry.