Female Deacons in the Byzantine Church1

Valerie A. Karras

doi:10.1017/S000964070010928X

Female Deacons in the Byzantine Church1

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009

Valerie A. Karras

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Valerie A. Karras: Affiliation:
bibliographer with the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae at the University of Calfornia, Irvine.

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Despite the energy devoted by American and Western European church historians and theologians to the question of the ordination of women in early Christianity and in the (western) medieval Christian Church, these scholars have shown comparatively little interest toward the female diaconate in the Byzantine Church, even when comparative analysis could potentially help elucidate questions regarding the theology and practice of women's ordinations in the West. Most of the research on the female diaconate in the Byzantine Church has occurred in Mediterranean academic circles, usually within the field of Byzantine studies, or in the Eastern Orthodox theological community; sometimes the examination of the female diaconate in the Byzantine Church has been part of a broader examination of women's liturgical ministries.

Type: Articles
Information: Church History , Volume 73 , Issue 2 , June 2004 , pp. 272 - 316

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S000964070010928X [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © American Society of Church History 2004

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References

2. Relevant works include Eisen, Ute E., Women Officeholders in Early Christianity: Epigraphical and Literary Studies, trans. Maloney, Linda M. (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical, 2000)Google Scholar; Elm, Susanna, “Vergini, vedove, diaconesse: alcuni osservazioni sullo sviluppo dei cosidetti ‘ordini femminili’ nel quarto secolo in oriente,” Codex Aquilarensis 5 (1991): 77–90Google Scholar; Gryson, Roger, The Ministry of Women in the Early Church, trans. Laporte, Jean and Hall, Mary Louise (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical, 1976)Google Scholar; Otranto, Giorgio, “Note sul sacerdozio femminile nell'antichità in margine a una testimonianza di Gelasio I,” Vetera Christianorum 19 (1982): 341–60Google Scholar; Otranto, Giorgio, Italia meridionale e Puglia paleocristiane: Saggi storici (Bari: Edipuglia, 1991)Google Scholar; and Torjesen, Karen Jo, When Women Were Priests: Women's Leadership in the Early Church and the Scandal of Their Subordination in the Rise of Christianity (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1993)Google Scholar. As part of a broader examination of early church orders, see the discussion of deaconesses in Davies, J. G., “Deacons, Deaconesses and the Minor Orders in the Patristic Period,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 14 (1963): 1–15CrossRef Google Scholar. Early scholarship on the female diaconate, concentrating on the early church, includes Pankowski, Jan Chrysostom, De diaconissis (Regensburg: George Joseph Manz, 1866)Google Scholar; and Kalsbach, A., Die altkirchliche Einrichtung der Diakonissen bis zu ihrem Erlöschen (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1926).Google Scholar

3. See, for example, Macy, Gary, “The Ordination of Women in the Early Middle Ages,” Theological Studies 61:3 (09 2000): 481–507;CrossRef Google Scholar and Ysebaert, J., “The Deaconesses in the Western Church of Late Antiquity and their Origin,” Instrumenta Patristica (Eulogia) 24 (1991): 421–36.Google Scholar

4. The “Byzantine Church” refers to the church of the East Roman (Byzantine) Empire, particularly the Church of Constantinople, in the period from 330 (the founding of Constantinople as the imperial capital of the Roman Empire) to 1453 (the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks).

5. For example, Macy draws on Eastern Church practice only in a footnote referencing the ordination of deaconesses in the early church, and does not discuss contemporaneous Byzantine practice at all, although it could help explain his observation that “some medievals, including bishops and popes, considered deaconesses and abbesses to be as ordained as any other cleric.” Macy, , “The Ordination of Women,” 502 and 502, n. 93.Google Scholar

6. Works in whole or part on the Byzantine deaconess include Bradshaw, Paul F., Ordination Rites of the Ancient Churches of East and West (New York: Pueblo, 1990)Google Scholar; FitzGerald, Kyriaki Karidoyanes, Women Deacons in the Orthodox Church: Called to Holiness and Ministry (Brookline, Mass.: Holy Cross Orthodox, 1998)Google Scholar; Martimort, Aimé Georges, Deaconesses: An Historical Study, trans. Whitehead, K. D. (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1986)Google Scholar; Taft, Robert F., S.J., “Women at Church in Byzantium: Where, When— and Why?” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 52 (1998): 27–87CrossRef Google Scholar; Theodorou, Evangelos, “Ή〈χειροτονία〉 ἢ 〈χειροθεσία〉 τ⋯ν διακονίσσων,” Theologia 25:3–4Google Scholar and 26:1 (July-September and October-December 1954; January-March 1955): 430–601 and 56–76; and Vagaggini, Cipriano, “L'ordinazione delle diaconesse nella tradizione greca e bizantina,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 40 (1974): 145–89.Google Scholar

7. Although it does not give ordination rites, the early-third-century Didascalia Apostolorum, extant in Syriac from a lost Greek original, parallels the ministry of female deacons to that of male deacons; Vööbus, A., The Didascalia Apostolorum in Syriac, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, vols. 401 and 407, Syr. 175 and 179 (Louvain: Sécretariat du Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, 1979)Google Scholar; Eng. trans. Vööbus, A., The Didascalia Apostolorum in Syriac, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, vols. 402 and 408, Syr. 176 and 180 (Louvain: Sécretariat du Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, 1979)Google Scholar. Book VIII, 3–5, 16–26, of the fourth-century Syriac Apostolic Constitutions, which is heavily dependent on the earlier Didascalia, gives the ordination rite for bishops, presbyters, deacons, deaconesses, subdeacons, and readers, and the consecration rite for confessors, virgins, widows, and exorcists. Les Constitutions Apostoliques, 3 vols., ed., trans., intro., critical text, notes Marcel Metzger, Sources Chrétiennes (hereafter SC), vols. 320,329, and 336 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1985–87), 3:138–48, 216–28; Eng. trans. “Apostolic Constitutions,” in Fathers of the Third and Fourth Centuries, eds. Alexander, Roberts and James, Donaldson, Ante-Nicene, Fathers, vol. 7, reprint ed. (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994), 481–83, 491–93Google Scholar. For a discussion of these and other early church documents relating to the female diaconate in the East, see Bradshaw, , Ordination Rites, 83–92Google Scholar; Martimort, , Deaconesses, 35–119.Google Scholar

8. The “early Byzantine period” denotes the fourth through sixth centuries. The turbulent seventh and eighth centuries, as the early part of the “middle Byzantine period,” constitute a liminal phase marking the final transformation of society, state, and culture from late antique to what is characteristically considered “Byzantine.” The “middle Byzantine period” thus extends from this transitional time through the ninth century (post-iconoclasm) to the fall of Constantinople to the Latins in 1204; the late period then dates from the Latin occupation until the Ottoman conquest in 1453.

9. See, for example, Martimort, , Deaconesses, 132Google Scholar, regarding the area west of the Jordan in the early to mid-sixth century. Also, most scholars have assumed that ordained female deacons did not exist in Egypt, based on the scanty literary evidence and on comments by Origen and Clement of Alexandria indicating a nonliturgical office; see Martimort, , Deaconesses, 76–100Google Scholar; Otranto, , “Note sul sacerdozio femminile,” 343Google Scholar; Ysebaert, , “Deaconesses,” 424.Google ScholarZanetti, Ugo, “Y eut-il des diaconesses en Égypte?” Vetera Christianorum 27 (1990): 369–73Google Scholar, shows through textual analysis that women deacons are specifically mentioned in the euchologion of the White Monastery in the tenth century, but nothing is known of their rank or functions, nor whether they were ordained.

10. There are numerous women titled “deacon” in late antique correspondence, saints' lives, and apophthegmata (“sayings” or short stories). For brief descriptions of some of these women, see Cloke, Gillian, “This Female Man of God”: Women and Spiritual Power in the Patristic Age, AD 350–450 (London: Routledge, 1995), 208–9CrossRef Google Scholar; Swan, Laura, The Forgotten Desert Mothers: Sayings, Lives, and Stories of Early Christian Women (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist, 2001), 109–26.Google Scholar

11. While references to deaconesses (the Greek word is διάκονος with the feminine article, the significance of which will be discussed below) are scattered throughout the Greek-speaking Mediterranean, the most numerous epigraphic references to female deacons are Asia Minor inscriptions dating to the fourth through sixth centuries; see Eisen, , Women Officeholders, 162–74.Google Scholar

12. Olympias previously had been a protégé of Gregory of Nazianzus as well. See Clark, Elizabeth A., Jerome, Chrysostom, and Friends (New York: Edwin Mellen, 1979), 107–57Google Scholar; Susanna, Elm, Virgins of God: The Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), 178–81Google Scholar. Elm (ibid., 174, 181–82) suggests that the ordained female diaconate developed, at least in part, as a method of simultaneously satisfying wealthy and powerful widows and controlling them as ordained clergy in a way that was not possible with the consecrated but nonordained order of Widows. Her theory is plausible, in that the already existing office of deaconess—for which there is some evidence by the end of the first or early in the second century—came to be used as a method of rewarding and honoring (and simultaneously controlling) these wealthy, powerful, and influential aristocratic women. Certainly, early imperial legislation of the female diaconate shows its roots in the order of Widows: Theodosius in June 390 promulgated a law requiring that deaconesses be widows of at least age sixty (the minimum age stipulated by the Apostle Paul for enrolled Widows) and with children to whom they would leave most of their property. Codex Theodosiani, Lib. 16, t. 2, no. 27; in Theodosiani Libri XVI, eds. Mommsen, T. and Meyer, P. (Berlin: Weidmann, 1905), 843–44Google Scholar. See, too, Sozomen, , Historia ecclesiastica 7, 16, 11Google Scholar, in Sozomenus, , Kirchengeschichte, ed. Joseph, Bidez with Hansen, Günther Christian. Griecheschen Christlichen Shriftsteller der Ersten Jahrhunderte, Neue Folge (Berlin: Academie, 1995), 4:324 (hereafter GCS).CrossRef Google Scholar

13. For example, can. 15 of the Council of Chalcedon, held in 451, set the minimum age at forty, twenty years younger than the emperor Theodosius had required sixty years earlier; Pitra, Ioannes Baptista, Iuris ecclesiastici Graecorum historia et monumenta iussu Pii ix. Pont. Max. Vol. 1: A primo ad VI saeculum (Rome: S. Congregationis de Propagande Fide, 1864; reprint, Bardi Editore, 1963), 528Google Scholar; Hefele, Carl J., Conciliengeschichte, (Freiburg: Herder, 1875), 2:519Google Scholar. Can. 14 of the Council in Trullo (691–92) reiterated the same age requirement; Pitra, Ioannes Baptista, Iuris ecclesiastici Graecorum historia et monumenta iussu Pii ix. Pont. Max. Vol. 2: A VI ad IX saeculum (Rome: S. Congregationis de Propagande Fide, 1868; reprint, Bardi Editore, 1963), 31–32Google Scholar. See Martimort, , Deaconesses, 107–9.Google Scholar Imperial legislation also set minimum ages and otherwise regulated clergy, including deaconesses. In the sixth century, Justinian lowered Theodosius' minimum age for female deacons from sixty to forty (Nov. 123, chap. 13); this was reiterated in book 3, title 1, chap. 5 of the ninth-century Basilics (an abridged and somewhat updated version of the Justinianic legal corpus, compiled under the emperors Basil I and Leo VI). Basilicorum libri LX. Series A, 8 vols., eds. Scheltema, H. J. and van der Wai, N. (Groningen: Wolters, 1955–1988).Google Scholar

14. See the discussion in Section IV, below, esp. nn. 109, 112, and 113.

15. The neighborhood was called “τà τ⋯ς Διακονίσσης.” See Janin, R., Constantinople byzantine: Dévelopment urbain et répertoire topographique, 2nd ed. (Paris: Institut Français d'Études Byzantines, 1964), 341.Google Scholar

16. Barberini gr. 336 preserves the-oldest extant Byzantine euchologion: L'eucologio Barberini gr. 336 (Ff. 1–263), eds. Stefano, Parenti and Elena, Velkovska, Bibliotheca “ephemerides Liturgicae” “subsidia,” vol. 80 (Rome: C.L.V.—Edizioni Liturgiche, 1995)Google Scholar. The ordination of the female deacon (sees. 163–34, in Barberini, 185–88) will be thoroughly examined in Section V, below.

17. According to Martimort, , Deaconesses, 151–52Google Scholar, two manuscripts of liturgical service books (euchologia)—the Grottaferrata codex from the eleventh or twelfth century and the Cairo codex from the fourteenth century—specify that the deaconess, “according to the custom that prevails today, … must be a nun in habit, tonsured,” thereby implying that the rubrics writer was aware that nonmonastic women had formerly been ordained as deaconesses, but this was no longer the practice. Martimort cites as his source Dimitrievskij, A., Opisanie liturgitseskich rukopisej, vol. 2, Εύχολόγια (Kiev: Izd. Imperatorskago Universiteta Sv. Vladimira, 1901), 346, 996Google Scholar. Curiously, this instruction is missing from the ordination rite, taken from the Grottaferrata manuscript, which is reproduced in Jacobus, Goar, ed., Euchologion sive rituale Graecorum (Graz: Akademische Druck-U. Verlagsanstalt, 1730; reprint 1960), 218–19Google Scholar. Goar's euchologion draws on a number of Greek manuscripts, but relies principally on the Grottaferrata codex.

18. With respect to functions and duties, see the discussion in Section II, below, for instance, regarding the universality of infant baptism.

19. According to Constantine, De ceremoniis 44 (35), for the feast of the Annunciation, the emperor, after visiting the skeuophylakion (where relics and vessels were kept, and the Gifts prepared), “passes through the narthex of the gynaeceum where the deaconesses of the Great Church have their customary place.” Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos, Le livre des cérémonies, ed. and trans. Albert, Vogt (Paris: Société d'Édition “Les Belles Lettres,” 1935), 171Google Scholar; Eng. trans. Taft, , “Women at Church,” 65.Google Scholar

20. Anna, Comnena, Alexiad 15, 7–8Google Scholar, in vol. 3 of Comnena, Anna, Alexiade (règne de l'empereur Alexis I Comnène, 1081–1118), trans. Leib, Bernard (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, various), 217Google Scholar. These deaconesses may also have been the female chanters that Alexios ordered for the antiphonal chants in St. Paul's.

21. Migne, J.-P., ed., Patrologiae cursus completes. Series graeca (hereafter PG) (Paris: Migne, 1857–1866), 137:141–44Google Scholar. See the conclusion to this article for a discussion of their commentaries.

22. Anthony's description also confirms Constantine Porphyrogenitus' siting (n. 19, above) of a special location for deaconesses in Hagia Sophia. See nn. 49 and 50, below.

23. In codex Vat. gr. 2219, f. 132v–143r; see No. 1747, item 1, in Laurent, V., Les regestes des actes du patriarcat de Constantinople, vol. I, Les actes des patriarches, fasc. IV, Les regestes de 1208 à 1309 (Paris: Institut Français d'Études Byzantines, 1971), 526Google Scholar: “Ils proscriront les monastères doubles et feront cesser la coutume des diaconesses.” The author is grateful to an anonymous reviewer for citing this entalma.

24. See n. 53, below.

25. For example, Chrysostom, John, Baptismal Instructions 2, 24Google Scholar, describes this part of the rite as performed (for men) in Antioch in the late fourth century. Chrysostome, Jean, Huit catéchèses baptismales inédites, intro., critical ed., trans., and notes Antoine, Wenger, Sources Chrétiennes 50 (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1957), 147.Google Scholar

26. Apostolic Constitutions, III, 16, in Metzger, , Les Constitutions Apostoliques II, 154–58Google Scholar; Funk, Francis X., Didascalia et Constitutiones Apostolorum (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1905), 201Google Scholar; cf. Vööbus, , Didascalia Apostolorum, 53.Google Scholar The fifth-century Testamentum Domini, II, 8, prescribes a similar role for ordained Widows and also instructs that women being baptized be shielded from the presbyter or bishop's view by a Rahmani, veil. I., ed., Testamentum Domini Nostri Jesu Christi (Mainz: Kirchheim, 1899; reprint, Hildesheim: George Olms, 1968), 128–31.Google Scholar

27. de Matons, José Grosdidier, “La femme dans l'empire byzantin,” in Histoire mondiale de la femme, ed. Pierre, Grimal (Paris: Nouvelle Librairie de France, 1967), 40Google Scholar, connects the decline of deaconesses to this lessening need for them in adult baptisms.

The conversion to Christianity of foreign women still provided occasion for female deacons to assist in baptism, but, at least in rural Byzantine Palestine, that practice had fallen into disuse, although female deacons still existed in the Church of Jerusalem. See John Moschos, Pratum spirituals chap. 3, in PG 87.3:2853–56.

28. For example, Didascalia Apostolorum 16: “For there are houses where you may not send deacons, on account of the pagans, but to which you may send deaconesses. And also because the service of a deaconess is required in many other domains.” In Vööbus, , Didascalia Apostolototm, 156.Google Scholar

29. Unlike the canons and civil legislation regulating female deacons, Photios does not specify virgins and widows, but perhaps that is implied by the phrase “σεμνῷ γήρα.”

30. Ep. 297, 4; in Photios, , Photii patriarchae Constantinopolitani epistulae et amphibchia, eds. Laourdas, B. and Westerink, L. G., vol. 3, Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana (Leipzig: BSB B. G. Teubner, 1983), 166.Google Scholar

31. Calabria was part of Byzantine Italy and so generally had more in common with Constantinople than with Rome. In fact, there is evidence of women deacons in Byzantine Italy in the seventh and eighth centuries (see nn. 36, 42, and 47, below), though not in the ninth. It is unclear, moreover, if they still existed, whether they existed as their own order by this time in the Latin Church (that is, further north in Italy). Western deaconesses' ministry may have been connected to that of their husbands; that is, they generally were the wives of deacons, and as such were also ordained and shared an active ministry with their husbands. See Macy, Gary, “Ordination of Women,” 493'94.Google Scholar

32. Gregory, of Nyssa, , De vita Macrinae 29Google Scholar, in Grégoire de Nysse: Vie de Sainte Macrine, intro., critical text, trans., notes Maraval, Pierre, Sources Chrétiennes (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1971), 178:236Google Scholar; Eng. trans. Gregory, of Nyssa, , The Life of Saint Macrina, ed. and trans. Kevin, Corrigan (Toronto: Peregrina, 1997), 45Google Scholar. Corrigan notes (68, n. 78) that the Greek term χορός may have either a general meaning (a group), or the specific meaning of a choir, as may be inferred from Hippolytus' Apostolic Tradition, 25, in Hippolytus, , On the Apostolic Tradition, trans. Behr, John (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2001), 134, or 26Google Scholar in Hippolytus, , The Treatise on the Apostolic Tradition of St. Hippolytus of Rome, Bishop and Martyr, 1968, trans. Dix, Gregory, ed. Henry, Chadwick, reprint with corrections from 2nd rev. ed. (London: Alban, 1991), vv. 18–32Google Scholar. See Quasten, Johannes, Music and Worship in Pagan and Christian Anticjuity, trans. Boniface, Ramsey (Washington, D.C.: National Association of Pastoral Musicians, 1983), 78–81Google Scholar. Elm, , Virgins of God, 177–78, n. 122Google Scholar, discussing the scholarly debate over the general or technical interpretation of the word in this context, observes that χορός is twice mentioned in the vita in a ceremonial sense, and cautiously raises Quasten's suggestion that it was in fact a musical chorus, while noting that Nyssa more commonly uses the word in its generic sense in the vita.

33. Pelikan, Jaroslav, Christianity and Classical Culture: The Metamorphosis of Natural Theology in the Christian Encounter with Hellenism (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1993), 89.Google Scholar

34. While the vita of St. Irene purports to tell the life of a ninth-century saint, the English translator of the Life finds the lack of chronological coherence so striking as not only to suggest that the text was composed in the tenth century (which the hagiographer readily admits), but also to call into question the very existence of the female saint. Rosenqvist, Jan O., The Life of St Irene Abbess of Chrysobalanton (Stockholm: Uppsala University, 1986), xxiii–xxixGoogle Scholar. While the latter conclusion is unwarranted given the Byzantine author's reference to the continuing veneration of Irene's tomb in his or her own day, Rosenqvist is no doubt correct in his theory that the description of Irene's life is a work of hagiographical fiction. However, that need not negate the value of the vita's description of Irene's ordination at the hands of the patriarch. It would have made little sense for the hagiographer to include a description of her diaconal ordination if the practice were completely unfamiliar to the average Byzantine layperson. Since ordination as a deacon was not a standard trope in middle Byzantine vitae of female saints, its inclusion in The Life of St. Irene points to either current or relatively recent actual practice and may in fact be one of the few elements of the saint's life based in fact.

35. Rosenqvist, , Life of St Irene, 26–29.Google Scholar

36. Davies, J. G., “Deacons, Deaconesses,” 1Google Scholar, n. 1, states that the term διακόνισσα first appears in synodal literature in canon 19 of the Council of Nicaea, and the purely feminine term was sometimes used interchangeably with διάκόνος (for example, in the fourth-century Apostolic Constitutions and in some of Justinian's sixth-century legislation). L'Huillier, Archbishop Peter, The Church of the Ancient Councils: The Disciplinary Work of the First Four Ecumenical Councils (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1996), 244Google Scholar, observes that Justinian used the term διακόνισσα in legislation dealing with deaconesses alone; in legislation referring to both male and female deacons, however, he used the term διάκονος with the adjective(s) for the appropriate sex. Nevertheless, ή διάκονος is the more common term used for a female deacon (leading to potential ambiguity with respect to the masculine plural form). Both canonical and civil legislation in late antiquity and the early Byzantine period more regularly use the term διάκονος for a woman deacon, as do the overwhelming majority of epigrams for women deacons compiled by Eisen, Women Officeholders, chap. 7. Surprisingly, the use of this term for female as well as male deacons has not been readily recognized by some scholars, leading to unfortunate “corrections.” For example, Schlumberger, Gustave, in his Sigillographie de Vempire byzantin (Paris: Societé de l'Orient Latin, 1884; reprint, Turin: Bottega d'Erasmo, 1963), 232Google Scholar, incorrectly notes “sic” and emends to “Antonin” (that is, Antoninos, a male name) the feminine genitive name 'Ανρονίνης, which appears on the obverse of a seventh-or eighth-century seal from Byzantine Italy whose reverse shows the masculine/feminine genitive title διακόνου. In the CD-ROM Prosopography of the Byzantine Empire I (641–867), ed. Martindale, John Robert (London: King's College/Ashgate, 2001)Google Scholar, Martindale does note that “it is possible that the feminine form ‘Antonina’ is correct and that the owner of the seal was a deaconess,” yet the entry is listed as “Antoninos I,” a male deacon, when in fact there is no legitimate reason to doubt that the owner of the seal was exactly what the seal indicates: a female deacon named Antonina.

37. The Greek phrase “τòν θεòν εύλογήσας,” which Rosenqvist translates merely as the bishop's “praising God,” should be recognized as more likely referring to his beginning the divine liturgy: “Εύλογημένη ή βασ⍳λεία το⋯ Πατρòς,” that is, “Blessed is the kingdom of the Father,” Goar, , Euchologion, 52Google Scholar. (Alternatively, it could refer to the beginning blessing of several other services, “Εύλογητòς ο Θεòς ήμ⋯ν,” that is, “Blessed is our God.”) The author thanks Eustratios Papaioannou for calling attention to this. Also, the order given, ordination first, followed by consecration as abbess, fits this interpretation since, although ordination to major orders occurred during the divine liturgy, ordination to lower orders, monastic tonsuring, and consecration to monastic offices were done outside of—hence, often after—the liturgy.

38. That the entalma of Patriarch Athanasius I, mentioned above (see n. 23), proscribed both double monasteries (that is, men's and women's joint communities) and deaconesses in the same item likely indicates that these deaconesses were nuns.

39. While most of the documentation for this latter category dates to the early and early middle Byzantine periods, one possible late antique example of this second category is Theosebia, who may have been a deaconess, and who was either the wife or sister of Gregory of Nyssa, based on a condolence letter he received from Gregory of Nazianzus. See Elm, , Virgins of God, 157–58Google Scholar, for a discussion of the relative merits of the evidence; also, Barnes, Michel René, “‘The Burden of Marriage’ and Other Notes on Gregory of Nyssa's On Virginity,” Studia Patristica, v. 37, part II, eds. Wiles, M. F. and Yarnold, E. J. (Leuven: Peeters, 2001), 13, esp. n. 7.Google Scholar

40. Knetes, C., “Ordination and Matrimony in the Eastern Orthodox Church,” Journal of Theological Studies 11 (1910): 481–90CrossRef Google Scholar. Knetes attributes the development of the widespread expectation of episcopal celibacy to monastic influence.

41. Code of Justinian I, 3, 47 (48); in Corpus iuris civilis (hereafter CIC), 3 vols. (Berlin: Weidmann, 1954–1959), vol. 2Google Scholar, Codex Iustinianus, ed. Paul, Krueger, 34Google Scholar. Justinian's legislation on bishops and their wives and families is discussed in Knetes, , “Ordination and Matrimony,” 490–91Google Scholar. For more on the history of marriage within the ordained orders of clergy, see Cholij, Roman, Clerical Celibacy in East and West (Leominster, U.K.: Fowler Wright Books, 1989).Google Scholar

42. Pitra, , Iuris ecclesiastici, 2:50Google Scholar. An example from eighth-century Byzantine Italy is recounted in Agnellus, , Liber pontificalis ecclesiae Ravennatis 154Google Scholar, in Le Liber pontificalis, 3 vols., text, intro., and commentary Duchesne, L. (Paris: E. Thorin; E. de Boccard, 1955–1957), 1:483Google Scholar; cited in Martindale, Prosopography, “Euphemia 3” and “Sergios 54.”

43. Balsamon, a canonist, was patriarch-in-exile of Antioch, residing in Constantinople in the late twelfth century.

44. Cholij, , Clerical Celibacy, 28Google Scholar. This became the rationale for forbidding the widows of priests to remarry. Gary Macy's article, “Ordination of Women,” esp. 490–94, demonstrates how a similar attitude was manifested differently in the medieval Latin Church, by ordaining or consecrating the spouses of clerics.

45. Cholij, , Clerical Celibacy, 28–29Google Scholar, cites similar reasoning in a requirement of Pope Alexander III preserved in the Decretals of Gregory IX, which disallowed a married man from entering a monastery unless his wife also took monastic vows. Regarding the wife's assumption of a rank similar to her husband's, Macy, “Ordination of Women,” 493–94, suggests that the wives of presbyters and deacons in the Western Church perhaps had “at times formed a liturgical team with their spouse.” He notes that, “according to a Roman Ordinal from ca. 900, presbyterae and deaconesses received their commissioning at the same time and as part of the same ceremony as the priests and deacons who were their spouses. The prayers for the ordination of deaconesses in the several sacramentaries through the twelfth century are identical (apart from the use of the feminine form) to those used in the ordination of a deacon. Both deaconesses and presbyterae received special vestments as part of their ordination rites. These rites apparently did not distinguish between those deaconesses (or presbyterae) who had an active ministry and those who were merely the spouses of priests and deacons.” A Latin rite of ordination for the female deacon is published in Vogel, Cyrille and Elze, Reinhard, Le Pontifical Romano-Germanique du dixième siècle. Le Texte 1. Studi e Testi (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1963), 226:54–59.Google Scholar

46. See Elm, , Virgins of God, 180Google Scholar, who claims that “by the fifth century the hegoumene deaconess nexus was common.”

47. For example, Radegund of Poitiers; see Pantel, Pauline Schmitt, ed., and Goldhammer, Arthur, trans., “From Ancient Goddesses to Christian Saints,” in A History of Women in the West (Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1992), 1:437–38Google Scholar; Macy, , “Ordination of Women,” 492–93Google Scholar. Another example, from mideighth-century Byzantine Italy, is Euphrosyne, deaconess and abbess of the women's monastery of SS. Marcellinus and Petrus in Naples; Capasso, Bartolommeo, Monumenta ad Neapolitani ducatus historiam pertinentia (Naples: F. Giannini, 1881), 1:262–63Google Scholar; cited in Martindale, Prosopography, “Euphrosyne 5.” The vita of Neilos of Rossano, chap. 79, provides a tenth-century example of an abbess-deacon in Byzantine Italy (Capua); Βίος καί πολιτεία το⋯ όσίον πατρòς ήμ⋯ν Νείλου το⋯ Νέου, ed. Giovanelli, G. (Grottaferrata: Badia di Grottaferrata, 1972), 118Google Scholar. My thanks to an anonymous reviewer for bringing the latter source to my attention.

48. Mateos, Juan, Le Typicon de la Grande Église. Ms. Sainte-Croix No 40, Xe siècle, vols. I–II, trans. Mateos, Juan, Analecta, Orientalia Christiana, vols. 165–66 (Rome: Pontificum Instirutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1962–1963), 1:4–5, 154, and 2:52 and 287Google Scholar; Arranz, Miguel, “L'office de l'asmatikos hesperinos (‘vêpres chantés’) de l'ancien euchologe byzantin,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 44 (1978): 408.Google Scholar

49. The author is indebted to George Majeska, who noted that some Russian travelers to Constantinople, such as Anthony of Novgorod, mentioned “myrrhbearing women” who sang and who had a special place near the Great Church's “prothesis chapel,” or skeuophylakion, which was located just outside the north door in the northeast bay, that is, the same place mentioned by Constantine Porphyrogenitus as the “deaconesses' narthex” (see n. 19). For this reason, despite Anthony's identification of these women as myrrhbearers, Majeska believes that the reference is to the deaconesses of the Great Church. He theorizes that the confusion of titles was due to the Russians' not having deaconesses; the title “myrrhbearer,” however, was frequently used for women serving a wide variety of nonordained functions in the Russian Church. The Russian use of the term “myrrhbearer” should not, however, be confused with the consecrated or ordained order of myrrhbearers in the Church of Jerusalem, which participated with the rest of the clergy in the Paschal services at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. See nn. 57 and 59, below.

50. A.III.8; in Kniga Palomnika: Skazanie mest svjatykh vo Tsaregrade Antonija Arkhiepiskopa Novgorodskago v 1200 godu, ed. Loparev, Kh. M., Sbornik, Pravoslavnij Palestinskij (St. Petersburg: Izd. Imp. Pravoslavnago palestinskago ob va, 1899), 51:2–9Google Scholar; trans. Taft, , “Women at Church,” 67Google Scholar. Taft identifies the prothesis with the cylindrical skeuophylakion of the Great Church, just outside the walls of the church on the northeast side.

51. See above, n. 19; Taft, , “Women at Church,” 65–70.Google Scholar

52. Janin, R., Les églises et les monastères, La géographie ecclésiastique de l'Empire byzantin (Paris: Insritut Français d'Études Byzantines, 1975), 3:549–50Google Scholar; Dagron, Gilbert, Con stantinople imaginaire: Études sur le recueil des patria, Bibliothèque Byzantine Études (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1984), 8:252, n. 177Google Scholar. Earlier, until at least the ninth century, ordained female deacons were distinct from the askētriai (άσκήτριαι); see the citation from the Basilics in n. 115, below. Perhaps some of the άσκήτριαι were deaconesses.

53. Theodore Balsamon, Scholia in Concilium Chalcedonense, in PG 137:441; Eng. trans. Martimort, , Deaconesses, 171.Google Scholar

54. Romano, R., ed., Timarione: Testo critico, introduzione, traduzione, commentario e lessico (Naples, 1974), 59Google Scholar. Eng. trans. Timarion, trans. Baldwin, B. (Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, 1984), 48–49Google Scholar; quoted in Gerstel, , “Painted Sources,” 92–93Google Scholar (emphasis in Gerstel).

55. Gerstel, , “Painted Sources,” 93, n. 18.Google Scholar

56. The Church of Jerusalem, although a patriarchate in its own right and politically subject to Arab Muslim rule from the seventh century, nevertheless maintained spiritual ties to the Byzantine Church and continued to be a Greek Byzantine Church. Because of pilgrimage traffic, the rites and calendar of the Church of Jerusalem, particularly in the early Byzantine period, were extensive and elaborate, and “exerted a strong liturgical influence on the other churches of the East.” Schulz, Hans-Joachim, The Byzantine Liturgy: Symbolic Structure and Faith Expression, trans. O'Connell, Matthew J., intro. Taft, Robert (New York: Pueblo, 1980), 139Google Scholar. The hymnographic tradition of the monastery of St. Sabas in Palestine during the middle Byzantine period was equally influential on the Byzantine Church.

57. The typikon (liturgical rule or manual) describing these rites, “Τυπικ⋯ν τ⋯ς έν Ίεροσολύμοις Έκκλησίας,” is reproduced in Papadopoulos-Kerameus, A., Άναλέκτα ίεροσολυμιτικ⋯ς σταχυολογίας, Vol. II (St. Petersburg: V. Kirvaoum, 1894)Google Scholar; see especially 179–99. The manuscript dates to 1122, but in the prologue (iii) Papadopoulos-Kerameus argues that it is a copy of an earlier work from the late ninth or early tenth century, based on a prayer commemorating Patriarch Nicholas, whose patriarchate lasted from 932 to 947 (the two Latin patriarchs named Nicholas reigned several decades after the written date of the manuscript, so the commemoration cannot refer to either of them). The typikon in general provides the texts and rubrics (some of which may have been added in the twelfth century) for the liturgical services of the Church of Jerusalem. A summary of the material on the myrophoroi contained in the Jerusalem typikon can be found in Bertonière, Gabriel, The Historical Development of the Easter Vigil and Related Services in the Greek Church, Orientalia Christiana Analecta (Rome: Pontifical Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1972), 193:50, n. 108Google Scholar. For a fuller discussion, see Karras, , “Liturgical Participation,” 153–62.Google Scholar

58. The solea is the part of the nave, often set off from the rest of the nave, directly in front of (that is, to the west of) the altar area. By the tenth to twelfth century, this is typically where one would find the chanter's stand and the bishop's throne.

59. Papadopoulos-Kerameus, , Άναλέκτα, 199.Google Scholar

60. See n. 96, below.

61. See n. 19, above; also, Taft, , “Women at Church,” 65–70.Google Scholar

62. In the Great Church, as in all the large churches in the East, women and men were segregated for cultural and moral reasons; in most churches, women occupied the north side and men the south side (churches were always oriented to the east). See Gerstel, Sharon E. J., “Painted Sources for Female Piety in Medieval Byzantium,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 52 (1998): 91–92CrossRef Google Scholar. Taft, , “Women at Church,” 57Google Scholar, even notes a funeral rubric in an eleventh-century codex that calls for the body of the deceased to be placed on the right (south) side of the church if male, on the left (north) side if female. However, most of the textual evidence for Hagia Sophia indicates that women occupied both the north and south aisles, with men in the central portion of the nave. See Taft, , “Women at Church,” 34–39Google Scholar; and Mathews, T. F., The Early Churches of Constantinople: Architecture and Liturgy (University Park: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971), 130–33.Google Scholar

63. Apostolic Constitutions II, 57, 10, in SC, 320:314.

64. “τ⋯ν γυναικωνῖτιν έκκλησιαστικ⋯ς διορθούμεναι” (translation mine). Theodore Balsamon, Responsa ad interrogationes Marci 35, in PG 138:988. Cf. Martimort, , Deaconesses, 172.Google Scholar

65. “παρ⋯ δέ τῇ άγιωτάτῇ Έκκλησίᾳ τοὺ θρόνου τ⋯ν Κωνσταντινουπολιτ⋯ν διακόνισσαι προχειρίζονται, μίαν μ⋯ν μετουσίαν μ⋯ ἔχουσαι έν τῷ βήματι”; Balsamon, Responsa 35, in PG 138:988.

66. “έκκλησιάζουσαι δ⋯ τ⋯ πολλά”; ibid.

67. See Section V, below.

68. Pitra, , Iuris ecclesiastici, 2:435Google Scholar; Hefele, Carl J., Conciliengeschichte (Freiburg: Herder, 1873), 1:427.Google Scholar

69. Ibid.; Eng. trans. Martimort, , Deaconesses, 102.Google Scholar

70. By contrast, Cotsonis, Jerome, “A Contribution to the Interpretation of the 10th Canon of the First Ecumenical Council,” Revue des études byzantines (Mélanges Raymond Janin) 19 (1961): 190Google Scholar, immediately observes that one of the important questions in this canon is “whether the word refers to the deaconesses of the Paulianists only or to those of the Church too.” Unfortunately, Martimort nowhere refers to or cites in his discussion the Cotsonis article, although it was published two decades before Martimort's work. See also Theodorou, , “〈χειροτονία〉 ἤ 〈χειροθεσία〉,” 27–32.Google Scholar

71. Martimort, , Deaconesses, 103Google Scholar. Kalsbach, , Altkirchliche Einrichtung, 46–49Google Scholar, and Gryson, , Ministry of Women, 48–49, reason similarlyGoogle Scholar. See Vagaggini, Cipriano, “L'ordinazione,” 155–56.Google Scholar

72. Cotsonis, “Contribution,” 190, observes that an assumption that deaconesses in general were not ordained “makes the rest of the text of the canon contradictory to itself. For at the beginning of the same sentence it appears that the canon regards deaconesses as members of the clergy while later it would seem prepared to consider them as being classed merely among the laity.” Similarly, Vagaggini, , “L'ordinazione,” 155–60Google Scholar, notes the illogical contortions to which other, earlier scholars have gone in order to interpret this canon in a way that excludes deaconesses from the clergy, including theorizing different types of deaconesses.

73. This is the problem with the interpretation of the canon suggested by L'Huillier, , Church of the Ancient Councils, 82–83Google Scholar. L'Huillier argues that, since there is no extant ordination rite for female deacons before the Apostolic Constitutions (citing the lack of one in the Apostolic Tradition), it was probably the Paulianists who had ordained female deacons as opposed to the catholic Church. He furthermore suggests that, “if this phrase concerns deaconesses in general, maybe the fathers of Nicaea wanted to remind people that this type of ministry did not have a priestly character properly speaking,” 83. However, the Apostolic Tradition is the only extant document containing ordination rites earlier than the Apostolic Constitutions; the absence of an ordination rite for deaconesses in this one work does not exclude the possibility of the ordination of deaconesses in other geographical areas, particularly the East. Indeed, it is unlikely that the Apostolic Constitutions would include an ordination rite for female deacons only a couple of decades—at most—after the Council of Nicaea in 325 if canon 19 were truly meant to be interpreted as a reminder of a long-standing blanket exclusion of ordained women deacons. (As with Martimort, L'Huillier appears unaware of the Cotsonis article.)

74. Cotsonis, “Contribution,” 197. His solution is more plausible than the attempt of Gelasius, in his Church History, and two ancient Latin translators to solve the problem by changing the first reference from “deaconesses” to “deacons.” See the discussion in L'Huillier, Church of the Ancient Councils, 82 and 99, nn. 392 and 393.

75. “Διάκονον μ⋯ χειροτονεῖσθαι γυναῖκα πρ⋯ έτ⋯ν τεσσαράκοντα καί ταύτην μετ⋯ άκριβο⋯ς δοκιμασίας” See n. 13, above. In this regard, L'Huillier, , Church of the Ancient Councils, 245Google Scholar, argues that “the text of canon 15 of Chalcedon leaves no doubt about the sacramental nature of the feminine diaconate. … It is, therefore, clear that at least at this period in the East, we are not dealing with an inferior order.”

76. The distinctions which are clear by the end of the middle Byzantine period are incipient but not so clear in the late antique period. In a response to Martimort, written as an appendix to the English translation of his book, Gryson, , Ministry of Women, 117–18Google Scholar, notes that distinctions between levels of clergy are evident in such early texts as the Apostolic Constitutions, but faults Martimort (Deaconesses, 75) for failing to consider the differences on their own terms, instead anachronistically applying modern views of ordination and of levels of clergy to the early period: “I believe that ‘the concepts of our modern theology’ have nothing to do with determining how the Apostolic Constitutions regarded the ordination of deaconesses. One cannot say that because our theology is reluctant to accept this ordination as sacramental, the same as that of the male deacons, the Apostolic Constitutions could not consider it such.” It is possible, however, to recognize differences in clerical levels based on contemporaneous evidence, not on anachronistic applications of modern theology and practice.

77. See, for example, Hawkins, Frank, “Orders and Ordination in the New Testament,” in The Study of Liturgy, eds. Cheslyn, Jones, Geoffrey, Wainwright, and Edward, Yarnold (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), 301–20.Google Scholar

78. While this discussion concerns the historical Byzantine Church, the distinctions drawn in this and the following paragraph apply to the modern Eastern Orthodox Church as well.

79. See, for example, the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom in Goar, , Euchologion, 47–69.Google Scholar

80. Goar, , Euchologion, 65–67Google Scholar; the text of the liturgy assumes that both a presbyter and a deacon are serving. Functions of lower orders may be assumed by higher orders, but not vice versa. Thus, the deacon's role (petitions, and so on) would be assumed by a presbyter or bishop serving alone; by contrast, a deacon could not baptize or celebrate the Eucharist. The specific characteristics of the ordination rites are discussed in Section IV, below.

81. Hawkins, , “Orders and Ordination,” 304.Google Scholar

82. This was typically seen in those few instances where the bishop or presbyter turned to the faithful (the celebrant typically stood at the altar facing east in the same manner as the laity), perhaps made a gesture of blessing (the rubrics are not always specific), and said to the congregation, “Peace be with you” (Είρήνη πάσι). According to the Apostolic Constitutions, VIII, 3, 28, in SC 336:230, blessing was reserved to bishops and presbyters; neither the male nor the female deacon was to bless congregants.

83. Apostolic Constitutions, III, 11, in SC 329:146; deacons were permitted only to assist bishops and presbyters. The Latin Church by the medieval period allowed deacons to baptize, but this expansion of the diaconal role never occurred in the East.

84. Goar, , Euchologion, 451–65.Google Scholar

85. This may be seen in the numerous sacraments and other services in the Goar Euchologion. Unlike the Latin Church, the Byzantine Church did not allow a deacon to serve as a witness to matrimony. This was because, as an Orthodox sacramental theology of marriage developed, the cleric marrying the couple was, as with the other sacraments, viewed as the celebrant (note the structure of the wedding—“crowning”—service, in ibid., 314–25). By contrast, the Latin Church continued the late antique philosophy embedded in civil law that viewed marriage essentially as an oath or contract; thus, the celebrants were the couple itself, with the cleric acting primarily as witness.

86. Diakonos (διάκονος) means “servant”; Acts 6:1–6. For a somewhat controversial revisionist interpretation of the meaning of the term, see Collins, John N., Diakonia: Reinterpreting the Ancient Sources (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990).Google Scholar

87. Hawkins, , “Orders and Ordination,” 293–97.Google Scholar

88. This had occurred for at least some of the churches of Asia Minor by the end of the first century, to judge by the letters of Ignatius of Antioch.

89. Apostolic Constitutions, III, 11, in SC 329:146.

90. For example, the ordination rites in the eighth-century Barberini euchologion, contained in secs. 159–66, follow this descending order; Barberini, 178–90.

91. Goar, , Euchologion, 194–261.Google Scholar

92. Martimort, , Deaconesses, 151Google Scholar, notes that, in all but one manuscript from the Byzantine period (Sinai gr. 956), this is the case. He draws no conclusions from this, however.

93. Martimort, , Deaconesses, 109–12Google Scholar, discusses Justinian's novellae but in this context completely sidesteps the question of whether the female diaconate was considered a major order.

94. CIC, vol. 3, Novellae, eds. Rudolf, Schoell and Guilelmus, Kroll (Berlin: Weidmann, 1959), 18.Google Scholar

95. “πόσους δ⋯ διακόνους, ἄρρενάς τε καί θηλείας”; CIC 3:19.

96. Nov. 3, 1, in CIC 3:21. Since the novel limits presbyters to 60, male deacons to 100, female deacons to 40, subdeacons to 90, readers to 110, and chanters to 25, it is clear that female deacons are included among the “most reverend clergy” totaling 425 persons. This novel was reiterated in the Basilics III, 2, 1.

97. For example, Nov. 6, 6, in CIC 3:43–45.

98. The Greek word consistently used is χειροτονία, not χειροθεσία; the potential significance of these two terms will be discussed in Section IV, below; see especially n. 124.

99. CIC 3:35.

100. There is no indication that Justinian or any other emperor attempted to impose drastic liturgical change on the Church through legislation; therefore, the logical assumption is that his categorization of the female diaconate reflects the theology of orders of the Byzantine Church generally.

101. CIC 3:35–36.

102. For more on late antique and Byzantine notions of the inherent weakness of women, see, for example, part 2, chap. 1, “Incapacités ou exclusions?” in Beaucamp, Joëlle, Le statut de la femme à Byzance (4e–7e siècle), vol. 2, Les pratiques sociales, Trauvaux et mémoires, Monograph 6 (oParis: De Boccard, 1992), 273–93Google Scholar; and Saradi-Mendelovici, Hélène, “L' ‘infirmitas sexus’ présumée de la moniale Byzantine: doctrine ascétique et pratique juridique,” in Les femmes et le monachisme byzantin, ed. Jacques, Perreault (Athens: Canadian Archeological Institute, 1991), 87–97Google Scholar. Clark, Gillian, Women in Late Antiquity: Pagan and Christian Lifestyles (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993), 56–62Google Scholar, discusses for late antiquity in general the ambivalence toward the notion of female weakness expressed in law and practice.

103. This philosophy was rooted biblically in 1 Tim. 2:11–12, where women are forbidden to teach because Eve was deceived (hence, she “taught” Adam badly). See, for example, Chrysostom, John, On the Priesthood, 3, 2, in PG 48:633.Google Scholar

104. Can. 15 of Chalcedon; in Pitra, , luris ecclesiastici, 1:528Google Scholar. Justinian's Nov. 6, 6, in CIC 3:43–44. See Beaucamp, Joëlle, Le statut de la femme à Byzance (4e–7e siècle), vol. 1, Le droit imperial. Travaux et mémoires, Monograph 5 (Paris: De Boccard, 1990), 183Google Scholar; Gryson, , Ministry of Women, 109–10Google Scholar. For a more general discussion of the restriction on higher clergy's marrying after ordination, see Viscuso, Patrick Demetrios, “A Byzantine Theology of Marriage: The ‘Syntagma kata stoicheion’ of Matthew Blastares” (Ph.D. diss., The Catholic University of America, 1989), 90–92.Google Scholar

105. See n. 12, above. Theodosius specifically refers to the Apostle Paul's minimum for Widows. Gryson, , Ministry of Women, 70Google Scholar, notes that the fifth-century Byzantine historian Sozomen, in his Ecclesiastical History, 7, 16, 8–11 (Sozomen, GCS, 4:323–24), credits a scandal in the capital with provoking Theodosius to set such a high minimum age. The connection is unclear since, according to Sozomen, the incident involved not a deaconess but an upper-class woman who accused a male deacon of sexual misconduct in connection with a penance prescribed to her by a priest, who was defrocked. See Gryson, , Ministry of Women, 148, n. 246Google Scholar; Beaucamp, , Le statut de la femme, 2:355.Google Scholar

106. Nov. 6, 6, in CIC 3:43.

107. However, there were exceptions, such as Olympias, the close friend of St. John Chrysostom, who was widowed quite young and was ordained a deaconess at the age of twenty-nine or thirty, at about the same time that Theodosius enacted the law setting the minimum age at sixty. Clark, , Jerome, Chrysostom, 112Google Scholar; Elm, , Virgins of God, 179Google Scholar. Another exception was Irene of Chrysobalanton, who was probably in her early to mid twenties at the time of her ordination. Rosenqvist, , The Life of St Irene, 28–29, n. 8.Google Scholar

108. It would be anachronistic, particularly for the Constanrinopolitan Church, to read into these age restrictions the issue of ritual impurity associated with menstruation. Except for a longstanding, very restrictive tradition in Alexandria and a caution in the fifth-century Testamentum Domini, of Syrian provenance, against ordained Widows' approaching the altar during their menses, there is no indication of liturgical restrictions on menstruants in the Byzantine Church prior to the ninth century. To the contrary, church orders from the early Byzantine period in the area of Antioch denounced the imposition of Levitical notions of impurity, explicitly including menstruation. See Section V, below. For more on this subject, see Branham, Joan, “Bloody Women and Bloody Spaces: Menses and the Eucharist in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages,” Harvard Divinity Bulletin 30:4 (spring 2002): 15–22Google Scholar; Cohen, Shaye J. D., “Menstruants and the Sacred in Judaism and Christianity,” in Women's History and Ancient History, ed. Pomeroy, Sarah B. (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 273–99Google Scholar; Frank, G. L. C., “Menstruation and Motherhood: Christian Attitudes in Late Antiquity,” Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae 19:2 (1993): 185–208Google Scholar; Karras, , “The Liturgical Participation of Women,” chap. 3, “The Ritual Impurity of Women: Blood and Birth,” 88–135Google Scholar; and Viscuso, Patrick, “Menstruation: A Problem in Late Byzantine Canon Law,” Études byzantines (forthcoming)Google Scholar. Note that Cohen and Frank treat only the late antique period.

109. “αύταί τε ἔνοχοι γενήσονται θανάτου.” Nov. 6, 6, in CIC 3:44–45. See Beaucamp, , Le statut de la femme, 1:183.Google Scholar

110. Ibid.

111. Nov. 6, 5, in CIC 3:42–43; see also Nov. 22, 42, in CIC 3:176.

112. CIC 3:45. By contrast, canon 44 of Basil prescribes seven years' excommunication for a deaconess guilty of fornication with a pagan; Pitra, , Iuris ecclesiastici, 1:593Google Scholar. See Beaucamp, , Le statut de la femme, 2:354Google Scholar; Martimort, , Deaconesses, 105.Google Scholar

113. Cf. Novel 123, chaps. 14, 29, and 30, in CIC 3:605, 616. Confiscation of the property of a wayward deaconess was retained in the Basilics III, 1, 46. For any man who raped a deaconess, nun, or other consecrated woman, the penalty was confiscation of the rapist's property; Nov. 123, chap. 43; Basilics IV, 1, 15.

114. Beaucamp, , Le statut de la femme, 2:340Google Scholar. Beaucamp, ibid., 276, n. 34, also cites Sozomen (Ecclesiastical History IV, 24, 16, in GCS, 4:181), who mentions a deaconess named Nektaria, who was excommunicated for violating her “contracts” (συνθ⋯και) and “vows” (⋯ρκοι).

115. The penalties under Novel 123 were similar to those that soon after would be instituted for adultery (that is, imprisonment in a monastery and loss of property). But, Beaucamp notes that this novel (chaps. 14 and 29), as with Novel 6, again is more lenient with male clerics (priests, deacons, and subdeacons), requiring only their defrocking and turning over their property to the diocese that they served. In other words, male clerics retained their personal freedom, including their freedom to marry. Beaucamp, , Le statut de la femme, 2:184Google Scholar; see also 210. L'Huillier, , The Church of the Ancient Councils, 247Google Scholar, similarly comments on the severity of canonical punishment in canon 15 of Chalcedon for deaconesses who marry (defrocking and excommunication) vis-à-vis their male counterparts (defrocking only), but he theorizes unconvincingly that its rationale lies in the maturity expected of the deaconess because of her greater age.

The symbolic status of deaconesses and other consecrated women with respect to the honor of the Church, “as the bride of Christ,” can also be discerned in the harsh penalty (cutting off the nose) prescribed in the ninth-century Basilics for those who behaved lewdly toward these women. Basilics LX, 37, 76.

116. VIII, 16–21, in SC 336:216–22.

117. The liminal position of the deaconess has engendered vociferous disagreement over her status. Bradshaw, , Ordination Rites, 84Google Scholar, declines to participate in the debate between Gryson and Martimort over whether the deaconess in the Apostolic Constitutions was sacramentally ordained, arguing that such a debate “may not only be anachronistic but also oversimplistic: the categorization of the liturgical ministries of the early Church cannot be reduced to a simple division between clergy and laity.”

118. Martimort, , Deaconesses, 69Google Scholar, notes this distinction, but fails to comment on it with respect to the ordination of the deaconess, whereas Gryson, , Ministry of Women, 115–20Google Scholar, finds it suggestive of the higher clerical status of the deaconess. Bradshaw, , Ordination Rites, 85Google Scholar, notes the similarities between the Apostolic Constitutions and the later Byzantine rite both in the analogous general structure and in the minor differences between the ordination rites of deacon and deaconess.

119. Apostolic Constitutions, VIII, 17, in SC 336:218; Eng. trans. “Apostolic Constitutions,” in Fathers of the Third and Fourth Centuries, eds. Alexander, Roberts and James, Donaldson, Ante-Nicene Fathers (hereafter ANF), vol. 7, reprint ed. (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994), 492.Google Scholar

120. VIII, 20–21, in SC 336:220–22.

121. The synthronon was a type of mini-amphitheater, that is, a series of raised levels in a semicircular shape, lining the sanctuary apse in early Christian churches in the East. This architectural feature may still be seen in certain ancient churches, such as Hagia Eirene in Constantinople (Istanbul). See Mathews, Thomas F., The Early Churches of Constantinople: Architecture and Liturgy (University Park: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971), 143–52.Google Scholar

122. VIII, 19, in SC 336:220; Eng. trans. ANF 7:492.

123. Bradshaw, Ordination Rites, observes that “the word ‘ordination’ [cheirotonia] does not appear at the beginning of the instruction concerning deaconesses” and suggests that “this omission may be intended to indicate a subtle distinction in status.” However, he does not respond to Gryson, , Ministry of Women, 118Google Scholar, who, upon examination of the critical apparatus, concluded “that the formulas in question peri de cheirotonias presbyterōn and others were wrongly inserted by Funk in the current text, and that in fact, these titles had been introduced later on into part of the manuscript tradition.” See Funk, Francis X., Didascalia et Constitutiones Apostolorum (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1905). Marcel Metzger's more recent critical edition, in SC 336, reproduces the same titles. The apparatus shows that the wording in these section titles is variable in the manuscript traditions, so Gryson may be correct; Funk and Metzger's editorial choices could have been predicated on the assumption that women were not truly ordained.Google Scholar

124. For a thorough discussion of the history of the use of these two terms and of their significance in terms of the distinction in ordination rites, see Trembelas, Panagiotis, “Τάξεις χειροθεσι⋯ν καί χειροτονι⋯ν,” Theologia 19:2–3; 20:1 (1941–1948; 1949)Google Scholar; Vogel, Cyrille, “Chirotonie et chirothésie: Importance et relativité du geste de l'imposition des mains dans la collation des ordres,” Irénikon 45 (1972): 7–21, 207–38Google Scholar; and Vagaggini, , “L'ordinazione,” 179–80, esp. n. 2Google Scholar. Vogel, 10, observes that the distinction in meaning between these two heretofore interchangeable terms begins in the eighth century and even then only in some juridical and didactic works. L'Huillier, , Church of the Ancient Councils, 243Google Scholar, agrees with Vogel regarding the instability of the two terms prior to the Second Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (787).

125. Trembelas, , “Τάξεις” 452.Google Scholar

126. Trembelas, , “Τάξεις,” 456Google Scholar; Taft, , “Women at Church,” 63–64.Google Scholar

127. Barberini, 188; Goar, , Euchologion, 203.Google Scholar

128. The ordination rite for the deaconess is found in secs. 163–64, in Barberini, 185–88.

129. This manuscript is also known as the Bessarion codex; the ordination of the deaconess appears in Goar, , Euchologion, 218–22Google Scholar. The ordination rites are preserved in a third principal euchologion, Paris BN Coislin 213, written in 1027, but it is very similar to the Grottaferrata manuscript; Bradshaw, , Ordination Rites, 7Google Scholar. There is also a tenth-century manuscript from the library of the monastery of St. Katherine, known as Sinai 956, and several late Byzantine manuscripts. For a discussion of these, see Arranz, Miguel, “Les sacrements de l'ancien euchologe constantinopolitain (1),” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 48 (1982): 284–335Google Scholar, and Martimort, , Deaconesses, 150Google Scholar, regarding the placement of the ordination rite. Theodorou, , “〈χειροτονία〉 ἤ 〈χειροθεσία〉,” 576–88Google Scholar, analyzes the texts specifically with reference to the ordination rite for the deaconess.

130. Caution should be exercised due to the archaizing tendency of the Byzantines; thus, the tendency to preserve texts intact may simply mean that the female diaconate was indeed widespread in the early Byzantine period but may not necessarily indicate that this was still the case at the time the euchologia were written. For instance, regarding Constantine Porphyrogenitus' De administrando imperio, sister volume to his De ceretmoniis, Kazhdan, Alexander notes in The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, eds. Kazhdan, Alexander P. and others (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 1:593Google Scholar, that “one must distinguish between the date of compilation … and the date of texts included.” Nevertheless, on the basis of the vita of St. Irene Chrysobalanton, as well as the fragmentary but presumably reliable sigillographic and diplomatic evidence from Byzantine Italy (see nn. 36, 42, and 47, above), we know that at least through the eighth century in southern Italy and the ninth or tenth century in Constantinople and Jerusalem, some women were still being ordained as deacons.

131. Taft, , “Women at Church,” 63Google Scholar, asserts that “the detailed rubrics … show an almost exact parallelism between the rite for instituting deacons and deaconesses.”

132. Goar, , Euchologion, 219Google Scholar. A canonist of the fourteenth century, Matthew Blastares, Collectio alphabetica, letter Γ, chap. 11, quotes this text almost verbatim; in PG 144:1176.

133. Bar. 163.2, in Barberini, 185; Goar, , Euchologion, 218Google Scholar. The anaphora is the central portion of the Divine Liturgy, culminating in the consecration of the bread and wine.

134. The Barberini codex consistently uses the word “archbishop” (άρχιεπίσκοπος), while the Grottaferrata manuscript used by Goar primarily uses “archbishop,” but occasionally “bishop.” The use of the word “archbishop” probably indicates the euchologion's original provenance of Constantinople.

135. Literally, she is “offered” (προσϕέρεται) or perhaps “offers herself”; Bar. 163.2, in Barberini, 185; Euchologion, 218. Martimort, , Deaconesses, 172Google Scholar, quotes Balsamon, Responsa 35, in PG 138:988, as asserting, in answer to a question posed him by Patriarch Mark III of Alexandria, that “formerly [πάλαι] there were sometimes recognized orders [τάγματα] of deaconesses, and they too had their place in the sanctuary [βαθμ⋯ν έν τῷ βήματι,].” Remarkably, Martimort states that Theodore is wrong because “at no time did deaconesses in the Byzantine rite ever have access to the sanctuary,” despite his earlier admission (152) that, “even if the place of ordination was not always specified, … that place was evidently the sanctuary, because the doors remained open and the candidate had to advance toward the bishop; nowhere is it specified that the bishop had to leave the altar.”

136. Bar. 163.3, in Barberini, 185–86; Goar, , Euchologion, 218Google Scholar; Eng. trans. Bradshaw, , Ordination Rites, 138.Google Scholar

137. Bar. 164.6, in Barberini, 186; Goar, , Euchologion, 218Google Scholar; Eng. trans. Bradshaw, , Ordination Rites, 138.Google Scholar

138. Bar. 164.10, in Barberini, 187–88; Goar, , Euchologion, 218Google Scholar; Eng. trans. Bradshaw, , Ordination Rites, 138.Google Scholar

139. Bar. 164.11, in Barberini, 188; Goar, , Euchologion, 218–19Google Scholar. The maphorion was a loose garment covering the head and shoulders worn by respectable Byzantine women. Byzantine icons usually show the Virgin Mary and female saints so attired (certain ascetic saints, such as Mary of Egypt, being obvious exceptions).

140. Bar. 164.13, in Barberini, 188; Goar, , Euchologion, 219.Google Scholar

141. Literally, “when there is a proskomide service,” that is, a service of preparation of the bread and wine for consecration during the Eucharist. Bar. 162.14, in Barberini, 184; Goar, , Euchologion, 211.Google Scholar

142. Bar. 162.15, in Barberini, 185; Goar, , Euchologion, 211.Google Scholar

143. The differences in the two sets of prayers are discussed below.

144. The text for the ordination of the male deacon says that the bishop “έπαίρεται τ⋯ ϕελ⋯νιν” (“lifts up and sets on [the deacon] the phelonin”); Bar. 162.11, in Barberini, 184. This garment is apparently what would become known as the stikharion, and should not be confused with the phelonion, or chasuble, worn by presbyters.

145. Among the first who argued for its placement among the major orders was Theodorou, , “〈χειροτονία〉 ἤ 〈χειροθεσία〉” 576–601Google Scholar. FitzGerald, , Women Deacons, 78–110Google Scholar, while presenting the opposing view of John Karmiris, relies heavily on Theodorou's conclusions, and agrees with him. See also Vagaggini, , “L'ordinazione,” 177–85Google Scholar, and Taft, , “Women at Church,” 63–64Google Scholar, who supports this position since he clearly understands the ordination to be a “cheirotonia rite.”

146. Opponents of the view that women deacons in the Byzantine Church were members of major orders include Vlassios Pheidas, “The Question of the Priesthood of Women,” in The Place of the Woman in the Orthodox Church and the Question of the Ordination of Women, ed. Gennadios, Limouris (Katerini, Greece: Tertios, 1992), 186–89Google Scholar, and Martimort, , Deaconesses, 156.Google Scholar

147. Bradshaw, , Ordination Rites, 88–89Google Scholar, may fall into this category since he makes no comment on the level of the order and, regarding the earlier Apostolic Constitutions, expresses his disquiet with anachronistic and oversimplistic categorizations of historical clerical orders (see n. 117, above). Nevertheless, in his review of the ordination rites of various orders, he treats the deaconess immediately after the deacon and before what he titles “minor orders”; Bradshaw, , Ordination Rites, 83–103.Google Scholar

148. FitzGerald, , Women Deacons, 82–101Google Scholar, offers a combination of theological with pastoral reflection on the two consecration prayers.

149. Martimort, , Deaconesses, 155–56.Google Scholar

150. Martimort, , Deaconesses, 156.Google Scholar

151. Bradshaw, , Ordination Rites, 138.Google Scholar

152. Martimort, , Deaconesses, 155.Google Scholar

153. Ibid.

154. Ibid.

155. Bar. 163.3, in Barberini, 186; Goar, , Euchologion, 218Google Scholar. Eng. trans. Bradshaw, , Ordination Rites, 138.Google Scholar

156. Bar. 161.3 for the deacon, 163.2 for the deaconess, in Barberini, 181 and 185; Goar, , Euchologion, 211 and 218Google Scholar. FitzGerald, , Women Deacons, 80–82Google Scholar, gives the full text of the prayer from other sources and comments upon its significance.

157. In fact, Martimort, , Deaconesses, 153Google Scholar, notes that no existing manuscript contains the complete text.

158. See, for example, Goar, , Euchologion, 242 and 244Google Scholar, for the presbyter and bishop, respectively.

159. Martimort, , Deaconesses, 153.Google Scholar

160. In fact, L'Huillier, 244, argues the opposite from Martimort based on this very prayer. He notes that, although the ordination status of the deaconess in the early church may be ambiguous, the Byzantine female deacon clearly “acquired all the characteristics of accession to higher orders, as professor E. Theodorou has noted, since the formula ‘the grace divine’ is used.” Taft, , “Women at Church,” 64Google Scholar, also finds the prayer incipit significant; see n. 126, above.

161. Bradshaw, , Ordination Rites, 88Google Scholar. Similar concerns are apparent in the requirement that even the female deacon wear the maphorion, which was considered proper woman's attire among the Byzantines and which reflected the Apostle Paul's injunction in 1 Corinthians 11 that women prophesy with their heads covered. As for Matthew Blastares' allusion to the deaconess' “weakness,” this may refer either to generic “feminine weakness” (see n. 102, above) or to the more advanced age of female deacons relative to male deacons at the time of ordination; Blastares, Collectio alphabetica, letter Γ, chap. 11, in PG 144:1176.

162. Cf. Bar. 161.11 and 164.11, in Barberini, 184 and 188; Goar, , Euchologion, 209 and 218–19Google Scholar; cf. Martimort, , Deaconesses, 156.Google Scholar

163. Cf. Bar. 161.13 and 164.13, in Barberini, 184 and 188; Goar, , Euchologion, 209 and 219Google Scholar; see Martimort, , Deaconesses, 154Google Scholar. Since there was no liturgical reason for the bishop to give the chalice to the deaconess, FitzGerald, , Women Deacons, 102Google Scholar, cites a Swedish scholar named Brodd who suggests that it may have been a relic of an earlier practice of deaconesses distributing the Eucharist at the liturgy. However, there is no contemporaneous evidence to support this hypothesis. It seems likelier that it was simply a desire to parallel the male and female deacons' ordination rites as closely as possible to each other, limiting differences to those necessitated either by propriety or by differing liturgical functions.

164. For a fuller discussion of the orarion, see Salaville, S. and Nowack, G., Le rôle du diacre dans la liturgie orientate: Étude d'histoire et de liturgie, Archives de l'orient Chrétien, vol. 3 (Paris; Athens: Institut Français d'Études Byzantines, 1962)Google Scholar; and, especially, Soteriou, G. A., “Τ⋯ όράριον το⋯ διακόνου έν τῇ Άνατολικῇ Έκκλησίᾳ,” Έπιστημονικ⋯ Έπετηρίς Θεολογικ⋯ς Σχολ⋯ς το⋯ έν Άθήνησι Πανεπιστημίου, 1:3 (1926): 405–90.Google Scholar

165. Martimort, , Deaconesses, 154Google Scholar, suggests this by commenting on the extension of the orarion to the subdeacon, in contravention of canon 22 of the fourth-century council of Laodicea.

166. A presbyter not serving at the liturgy, or one officiating at a noneucharistic service such as those from the liturgy of the hours, would not be fully vested, but would wear only the epitrachelion, which was the particular stole symbolizing his priesthood.

167. Balsamon, in PG 137:1369; in Soteriou, , “Τ⋯ όράριον,” 457.Google Scholar

168. Day, Peter D., The Liturgical Dictionary of Eastern Christianity (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical [A Michael Glazier Book], 1993), 213.Google Scholar

169. See Soteriou, , “Τ⋯ όράριον,” 433Google Scholar. In addition to the occasional evidence provided by such illuminated manuscripts as the tenth-century Athens gr. 211, fol. 11Ov, and the fourteenth-century Brit. Mus. Add. 39627, fol. 202r, numerous frescos from the eleventh to fourteenth centuries of the Communion of the Apostles depict apostles approaching the chalice with their hands veiled, including St. Sophia in Ohrid (eleventh century); and monastic churches in Studenica (thirteenth and fourteenth centuries), and Gracanica and Čučer (fourteenth century). Photos of many of these frescoes (including Figure 1 above) appear in Lean, Richard Hamann-Mac and Hallensleben, Horst, Die Monumentalmalerei in Serbien und Makedonien vom 11. bis zum frühen 14. Jahrhundert, Osteuropastudien der Hochschulen des Landes Hessen, Reihe 2, Band 3 (Giessen: W. Schmitz, 1963).Google Scholar

170. Thierry, Nicole and Thierry, Michel, “Ayvali Kilise ou Pigeonnier de Gülli Dere: Église inédite de Cappadoce,” Cahiers archéologiques 15 (1965): 126–27.Google Scholar

171. The menaion (from the Greek word for “month”—there were twelve menaia) contained the special hymns and readings, including short vitae of the relevant saints, associated with the calendar feasts. The synaxarion provided only the saints' lives, but at greater length.

172. Thierry, and Thierry, , “Ayvalie Kilise,” 101.Google Scholar

173. Thierry, and Thierry, , “Ayvalie Kilise,” 99.Google Scholar

174. This differs from the Apostolic Constitutions, VIII, 13, 14, in SC 336:208–10, whose rubrics place the deaconess at the head of the ordained and consecrated women who receive the Eucharist, after all the ordained and consecrated men, including lower orders and monks. This may simply reflect the segregation of the sexes, however, since all the ordained and consecrated men are listed first (in descending order), followed by the ordained and consecrated women, then by the children and the rest of the laity.

175. As mentioned earlier, the rubrics assume only a presbyter and deacon.

176. Martimort, , Deaconesses, 173Google Scholar, provides two examples of euchologia from the late and post-Byzantine period that do not contain the ordination rite for female deacons, observing that “not all of the copyists, of course, were slaves to routine to the same degree.” The Goar euchologion includes variations in ordination and other rites based on several manuscripts. Moreover, there are some striking differences between the eighth-century Barberini 336 codex and the tenth-century Grottaferrata manuscript, for example, in the service of the forty-day blessing after the birth of a child. See nn. 188 and 189, below.

177. Further evidence of the loss of institutional memory of ordained deaconesses may be the lack of any mention of them in Symeon of Thessaloniki's De sacris ordinationibus, in PG 155:361–470; deacons are treated in cols. 361–84, along in part with other major orders. Symeon was born in Constantinople in the latter half of the fourteenth century and became archbishop of Thessaloniki, the second most important city in the Byzantine Empire, in the early fifteenth century. His massive works describe in detail the liturgical practices of Thessaloniki in his time, yet in this treatise on clerical ordinations he never mentions female deacons. See Martimort, , Deaconesses, 174.Google Scholar

178. For example, popular tradition held that the first iconophile martyr was a nun. For women's roles during iconoclasm, consult Alice-Mary, Talbot, ed., Byzantine Defenders of Images: Eight Saints' Lives in Translation (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1998).Google Scholar

179. See, for example, Mango, Cyril, Byzantium: The Empire of New Rome (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1980), esp. 60–87Google Scholar. The Eastern provinces in particular were seriously affected by, first, Arab incursions beginning in the seventh century and, later, repeated Turkish onslaughts, particularly in Asia Minor, from the eleventh century on.

180. Martimort, , Deaconesses, 171, n. 36Google Scholar, remarks that both John Zonaras and Alexius Aristhenes (mid-twelfth century) “commented on this canon as if it were still in force,” yet discounts the value of these witnesses since, he claims, “that was the typical proceeding of that age.” Nevertheless, the fact that Balsamon, near the end of the same century, did not attempt to pretend that an extinct order still existed seems to challenge Martimort's denial. Zonaras and Aristhenes are probably as reliable about the practice of their day as are Balsamon and, later, Blastares, for theirs. It is also possible that female deacons were no longer being ordained by the mid-twelfth century, but that Zonaras and Aristhenes knew of women who had been ordained slightly earlier.

181. See n. 53, above.

182. For example, Martimort, , Deaconesses, 171–74Google Scholar, recounts the evidence from Balsamon of the disappearance of the female diaconate but suggests no rationale for it. By contrast, FitzGerald, , Women Deacons, 134–48Google Scholar, suggests several possible reasons, but most do not answer the question of why the female diaconate declined in the Byzantine Church at the end of the middle Byzantine period. For example, changing liturgical practices (including the universality of infant baptism) and reactions to gnosticism might have been relevant in late antiquity and the early Byzantine period, but not in the twelfth century; conversely, the effect of the Church's captivity under Islam might have influenced provincial practices, but would not have been a factor in Constantinople since it was not conquered by the Ottoman Turks until at least three centuries after the disappearance of the deaconess. The presumed negative influence of Islam on women's liturgical orders is also contraindicated by Jerusalem's retention of the female diaconate as well as its unique office of myrophoroi. As for the prohibitions of various Western Church councils, those were no more likely to be followed by the Byzantine Church than were Western prohibitions against married clergy. FitzGerald (143–45) does raise the issue of menstruation in the context of the writings of Theodore Balsamon and Matthew Blastares, but draws no specific conclusions; “women's sexuality” is simply one possibility among several.

183. See n. 108, above. It should be noted, however, that even in Syria, where women per se were not excluded from the altar, they were at times restricted from both it and the Eucharist when menstruous. See Branham, , “Bloody Women and Bloody Spaces,” 20Google Scholar. Branham's thesis is that restrictions against menstruous women in Jewish temple worship and Christian eucharistic worship in late antiquity and the early medieval period were based on the notion of eliminating competing bloods, menstrual and sacred (that is, the Eucharist). Her thesis might provide at least a partial explanation for the ease with which canonists such as Balsamon and Blastares rationalized away for ejaculant men the Levitical notions of ritual impurity that they so eagerly applied to menstruating and postpartum women. See Viscuso, Patrick, “Purity and Sexual Defilement in Late Byzantine Theology,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 57 (1991): 400–402.Google Scholar

184. Can. 2, in PG 10:1281A; Pitra, , Iuris ecclesiastici, 1:544Google Scholar; Rhalles, G. A. and Potles, M., Σύνταγμα τ⋯ν θείων κα⋯ ίερ⋯ν κανόνων (Athens: G. Chartophylax, 1854), 4:7–9Google Scholar, including the commentaries of Zonaras and Balsamon. See Branham, , “Bloody Women and Bloody Spaces,” 19–20Google Scholar; Cohen, , “Menstruants and the Sacred,” 288–89Google Scholar; Frank, , “Menstruation and Motherhood,” 198–201.Google Scholar

185. Can. 2, in Pitra, , Iuris ecclesiastici, 2:21–23.Google Scholar

186. Pitra, , Iuris ecclesiastici, 1:631Google Scholar. This is Question 7 in a series of 18 questions and answers, referred to as “the 18 canons of Timothy” or the “Canonical Replies.” Frank, , “Menstruation and Motherhood,” 200Google Scholar, notes that, in Question 6 (requiring a woman to defer baptism until after her menstrual cycle) as well as in Question 7, Timothy adds that the menstruant should wait “until she has been purified of it” (ἔως καθαρισθῃ—but note that Taft, , “Women at Church,” 75Google Scholar, reads καθαρισθῇ, although this does not substantively change the meaning of the text). Taft wonders whether “there was a specific Christian ritual of purification for women, or only that there was a period of time that had to elapse in order to effect purification?” Since the church would not have required the sacrifice of pigeons as prescribed in the Levitical law, it is not unreasonable to assume that the purification was a bath of some sort, similar to that which the fifth-century Testamentum Domini (I, 42) required of Widows following their menstrual period before they returned to the altar. Rahmani, I., Testamentum Domini, 100Google Scholar; Eng. trans. Sperry-White, Grant S., “Daily Prayer in Its Ascetic Context in the Syriac and Ethiopic Testamentum Domini” (Ph.D. diss., University of Notre Dame, 1993), 59Google Scholar. However, this does not mean that such bathing was a church ritual. The term could just as easily refer either to some homespun ritual or even to a woman's visiting the public baths at the end of her menstrual cycle, in which case καθαρισθῇ might more accurately be translated simply as “made clean” than “purified,” which has ritual connotations. Regarding this provision in the Testamentum Domini, also see Taft, , “Women at Church,” 75.Google Scholar

187. See Branham, , “Bloody Women and Bloody Spaces,” 20–21Google Scholar. Moreover, given Balsamon's complaint, in PG 138:465C, that women often ignored the full proscription by participating in the liturgy from the narthex, one wonders just how widespread—or at least heartfelt—the acceptance of restrictions on menstruants was even in the twelfth century. See Taft, , “Women at Church,” 50.Google Scholar

188. Bar. 336, 113, in Barberini, 97. See Arranz, Miguel, “Les sacrements de l'ancien Euchologe constantinopolitain (3),” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 49 (1983): 292–93.Google Scholar

189. “Εύχα⋯ είς γυναίκα λεχὼ μετ⋯ μ΄ ήμέρας.” Goar, , Euchologion, 267–71.Google Scholar

190. Pitra, , luris ecclesiastici, 2:335Google Scholar. de Matons, José Grosdidier, “La femme dans l'empire byzantin,” in Histoire mondiale de la femme, ed. Pierre, Grimal (Paris: Nouvelle librairie de France, 1967), 36Google Scholar, appears to be aware of this canon of Nikephoros when he comments on the differing effects of the mother's ritual uncleanness on the newborn, depending on the infant's baptismal status. This would explain why infants normally were not baptized before forty days.

191. Balsamon, Theodore, Responsa 35Google Scholar, in PG 138:988; Eng. trans. Martimort, , Deaconesses, 172.Google Scholar

192. Blastares, Collectio alphabetica, letter Γ, chap. 11, in PG 144:1176, summarizes the ordination rite as it appears in the Barberini and Grottaferrata euchologia.

193. Ibid., col. 1173; Eng. trans. Martimort, , Deaconesses, 173.Google Scholar

194. Ibid.

195. Ibid.; Eng. trans. Martimort, , Deaconesses, 173.Google Scholar

196. For example, Pheidas, , “The Question of the Priesthood of Women,” 181–89.Google Scholar

197. This second argument, below the surface, appears to be based on the first one; that is, it has more to do with modern ecclesiastical debates over the role of women in the church than with a dispassionate scholarly view of the historical record. See Martimort, , Deaconesses, 148–56, 243–50.Google Scholar

198. See n. 84, above.

199. L'Huillier, , Church of the Ancient Councils, 316Google Scholar, n. 392, echoes this sentiment.

200. L'Huillier, , Church of the Ancient Councils, 245Google Scholar, raises a similar caution in his discussion of the significance of canon 15 of Chalcedon with respect to the status of the female diaconate.

201. Ideology and actual practice often differed, of course. See Herrin, Judith, “In Search of Byzantine Women: Three Avenues of Approach,” 167–89, in Images of Women in Antiquity, eds. Averil, Cameron and Amélie, Kuhrt (Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, 1983; rev. ed. 1993), esp. 168–70Google Scholar; Talbot, Alice-Mary, “Women,” 117–43, in The Byzantines, ed. Guglielmo, Cavallo, trans. Dunlap, Thomas, Fagan, Teresa Lavender, and Lambert, Charles (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), esp. 129–40.Google Scholar

202. See n. 81, above.

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Female Deacons in the Byzantine Church1

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