DEACON

(See Bishop , Presbyter , Priest , Orders , Clergy .) The name Διάκονοι , which is the original word for deacons, is sometimes used in the New Testament for any one that ministers in the service of God : in which large sense we sometimes find bishops and presbyters styled deacons, not only in the New Testament, but in ecclesiastical writers also. But here we take it for the name of the third order of the clergy in the Church. Deacons are styled by Ignatius, “ministers of the mysteries of Christ,” adding that they are “not ministers of meats and drinks, but of the Church of God .” In another place he speaks of them as “ministers of Jesus Christ ,” and gives them a sort of presidency over the people, together with the bishops and presbyters. Cyprian speaks of them in the same style, calling them “ministers of episcopacy and the Church,” and referring their origin to the Acts of the Apostles; and he a erts that they were called ad altar is ministerium , to the ministry and service of the altar. Optatus had such an opinion of them as to reckon their office a lower degree of the priesthood. At the same time it is to be observed, that in this he was singular. By those who regarded them as a sacred order, they were generally distinguished from priests by the name of ministers and Levites . The ordination of a deacon differed in the primitive Church from that of a presbyter, both in the form and manner of it, and also in the gifts and powers that were conferred by the ordinance. In the ordination of a presbyter, the presbyters who were present were required to join in imposition of hands with the bishop. But the ordination of a deacon might be performed by the bishop alone, because, as the [fourth] Council of Carthage words it, he was ordained not to the priesthood, but to the inferior services of the Church: “qui a non ad sacerdotium sed ad ministerium consecratur.” It belonged to the deacons to take care of the holy table and all the ornaments and utensils appertaining thereto; to receive the oblations of the people, and present them to the priest; in some churches, to read the Gospel both in the communion service and before it also; to minister the consecrated bread and wine to the people in the eucharist; in some churches, to baptize; to act as directors to the people in public worship, for which purpose they were wont to use certain known forms of words, to give notice when each part of the service began, and to excite people to join attentively therein; to preach, with the bishop’s licence; in extreme cases to reconcile the excommunicated to the Church; to attend upon the bishop, and sometimes to represent him in general councils. Deacons seem also to have discharged most of the offices which now devolve upon churchwardens.— Bingham. The Church of England enjoins that “none shall be admitted a deacon except he be twenty-three years of age, unle he have a faculty;” and she describes the duties of a deacon in her office as follows: “It appertain eth to the office of a deacon, in the church where he shall be appointed to serve, to a ist the priest in Divine service, and specially when he minister eth the holy communion, and to help him in the distribution thereof, and to read Holy Scripture and homilies in the church; and to instruct the youth in the catechism; in the absence of the priest to baptize infants, and to preach, if he be admitted thereto by the bishop. And, furthermore, it is his office, where provision is so made, to search for the sick, poor, and impotent people of the parish, to intimate their estates, names, and places where they dwell, unto the curate, that by his exhortation they may be relieved with the alms of the parishioners, or others.” In the rubric after the sentences of the Offertory, it is ordered, that “while these sentences are in reading, the deacons, churchwardens, or other fit persons appointed for that purpose, shall receive the alms for the poor,” . The deacon cannot pronounce the absolution, or minister at the holy communion, except as an a istant. And if the rubrics be strictly construed according to the letter, neither can he read the versicles before the Psalms, or after the Lord’s Prayer, (at its second occurrence,) nor the latter part of the Litany, beginning at the Lord’s Prayer; nor any part of the Communion Service, except the Gospel, (not according to the rubric, however, but in virtue of the licence in the Ordination Service,) the Creed, and the confe ion. He is permitted to baptize only in the absence of the priest ; and perhaps the same remark may apply to the other occasional offices.