XPost: alt.religion.christian.east-orthodox, alt.religion.christian.episcopal   
   From: hayesstw@telkomsa.net   
      
   On Fri, 23 Aug 2019 13:00:57 -0700 (PDT), James   
    wrote:   
      
   >This devaluing of the apostolic office of the diaconate certainly has   
   >a long history, especially in the West. When one was ordained a deacon   
   >in the Anglican church back in my day, the quip was usually made to   
   >the newly-ordained deacon, “Now you can do everything that a layman   
   >can do!”—which was technically correct, since the deacon then had no   
   >liturgical task that could not be performed by a layman. In the West,   
   >even the very term “deacon” seemed to lose all meaning, for an   
   >“archdeacon” in the Anglican church was in fact a priest, not a   
   >deacon.   
      
   Indeed.   
      
   One of the reasons that I left the Anglican Church and became Orthodox   
   was that the Anglican Church had a commission on the diaconate, of   
   which I was a member, which met over three years at great expense, and   
   when it came to present its report to the synod the synod voted to   
   move to the next business, thereby ignoring the report.   
      
   >This DRE peculiarity was not evidence of prejudice against deacons   
   >because in most parishes (at least at the time when the DRE booklets   
   >were first printed), most parishes did not have a deacon, and all the   
   >litanies and liturgical directives, which classically were done by the   
   >deacon, of necessity had to be done by the priest. Fr. Alexander   
   >Schmemann (of blessed memory) called attention to this inconsistency   
   >of parish life in one of his lectures. He said that despite Orthodoxy   
   >declaring that deacons were a divine institution in the Church, there   
   >were no deacons in the Metropolia when he first arrived in America.   
   >So, we may indeed ask: do we really need deacons?   
      
   Fortunately St Tikhon's Seminary p[roduces liturgical texts which show   
   what the deacons are supposed to do, otherwise who would know?   
      
   See here:   
      
   https://khanya.wordpress.com/2010/02/09/deacons-and-diaconate/   
      
   Band here:   
      
   https://khanya.wordpress.com/2011/01/22/what-is-a-priest/   
      
      
   --   
   Steve Hayes   
   http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm   
   http://khanya.wordpress.com   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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