= kn)

[Eng. arch, and deacon; A.S. arced i a con; Dan. and Ger. arkidiaconus; Dut. aartsdeken; Fr. archidiacre Sp. arced i a no; Port. arced i a go; Ital. arcidiacono; Lat. arc hid i a conus; Gr. ἀρχιδιάκονος ( archidiakonos ); ἀρχι ( arch i ) = chief, and διάκονος ( diakonos ) = deacon.] [DEACON.) A chief deacon. The first institution of deacons [Gr. διάκονοι ( diakonoi ) = servants, waiting-men, ministers, me engers] is recorded in Acts vi. They were elected to discharge such half-secular funetions as raising and distributing alims to the poor, thus leaving the apostles free for purely spiritual work. It may be a umed that when meetings of the deacons took place, some ona presided over them, and if this chairman was one of themselves, he would naturally be called in Greek ἀρχιδιάκονος ( archidiakonos ), in Eng. Archdeacon. The president of the deacons' meeting would require to be often in conference with the pastor; and when people meet, mind will affect mind, altogether apart from the relative dignity of the men brought in contact with each other. The archdeacon gradually gained in power, and, becoming what was called "the bishop's eye," was often dispatched on confidential mi ions to different parts of the diocese, there probably being about him a pliability wanting in the χωρεπίσκοποι ( chore pisco poi ) = country, coadjutor or suffragan bishops. The survival of the fittest took place, and the archdeacon ended by superseding the more dignified but le bending functionaries. The same drama was re-enacted on English soil between the archdeacons and the rural deans, the latter, who were at first higher in position than their rivals, being now regarded as inferior to them in rank; an ordinary, or full dean, however, as contradistinguished from a rural dean, is admittedly superior to an archdeacon. The emoluments of the archdeacon ates being but trifling, the occupants of the office generally hold also other preferments. They are empowered to hold a court, the lowest in the scale, from which there lies an appeal to the bishop of the diocese. "They weren in the archedeknes book" Chaucer: C. T., 6,900. "Twenty-two deans and fifty-four archdeacons sate there in virtue of their offices."-Macaulay: Hist Eng ., ch. xiv.