Deaconess.

The institution of deaconesses goes back to apostolic times: “I commend unto you Phoebe our sister, which is a servant of the church which is at Cenchrea,” writes the Apostle Paul to the Romans (16:1). In the canons of the Council of Laodicea they are called “elder women,” since older widows were chosen for the office — mothers not less than 60 years of age and married only once. Their chief duties consisted in watching the door through which women entered the church; observing the virgins and widows; teaching the young women and women newly received into the church; assisting the bishop at the baptism of women, anointing in his place the parts of the body other than the forehead; caring for the poor and the sick; and being present at private conversations of bishops, presbyters, and deacons with women.

In times of persecution, deaconesses sometimes ministered to martyrs and confessors in prison, when prudence did not allow such commissions to be entrusted to deacons. They are called “widows” because they were generally chosen from among widows, though there were deaconesses chosen from virgins as well. The sister of St. Gregory of Nyssa, Macrina, was a deaconess while remaining a virgin.