PREFACE

In 1963 a bishop of the Episcopal Church laid his hands on my head and said, “Take thou authority to execute the Office of a Deacon in the Church of God committed unto thee; In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.” Three days later began my month’s supply ministry in a parish whose rector was on vacation. Except for a Sunday supply priest, I was quite on my own for all practical purposes. As a matter of curiosity, I took up the Book of Common Prayer to see again what specific functions I had as a deacon; academic theory and ordination promises had suddenly acquired a jolting dimension of existential reality! Finding listed some tasks I felt unprepared for, and some that perhaps were not to be done, I ministered as I could for the four weeks.

When I returned to the final months of my sojourn as a master in the Choir School of the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine, New York, I sought to satisfy my lingering curiosity about the diaconate, a curiosity now safely academic. For myself, teaching mathematics and participating in some liturgical functions seemed quite peripheral to the order. Even my colleagues in parish work seemed to lack a specifically diaconal ministry, instead being sort of junior clergy due for an ecclesiastical and pecuniary raise in six months to a year. I wondered whether the Sacred Order of Deacons had become outmoded?

Neither persons nor books I sought out furnished unanimity on the tasks for the contemporary deacon. Thus, with the encouragement from some senior clergy, I set out to gather essays about the diaconate from some perceptive Christians. As I wrote to one of the contributors, “the study will contain varying points of view, inasmuch as the Christian traditions value the diaconate with much variety. Our purpose is to air some of the significant issues and to offer these thoughts to the Church. It is not our purpose to achieve unanimity, but rather a common spirit of scholarly reflection.”

The first chapter is concerned with the development of the diaconate, followed by surveys of its uses and, as authors have wished to comment, potentials in Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Anglicanism, and the Church of South India.

A word about the chapter on Anglicanism is in order. The diaconate in this Communion is practiced with diversity. This comprehensive feature led the editor to seek expositions on these practices with the hope that from a “practical” point of view, certain representative uses of an ordained diaconate could be explored.

No treatment of this ministry would be complete without a word about deaconesses. Concluding the study is a chapter speculating on the role of the diaconate in the Church’s future. If the thoughts on these pages offer the Church a better understanding of its diaconal heritage and potentials, the study will have served its purpose.

I wish to express my appreciation and gratitude to the contributors, who entrusted their written words to a novice editor. My thanks go, also, to the several persons who offered suggestions as the project developed. In particular, I am grateful to the Rev. Lee A. Belford, Ph.D., Chairman and Professor of Religious Education at New York University, who permitted me to undertake the initial phases of this task within an independent study course, and who offered helpful criticisms. Thanks go, also, to the Rev. Ian D. K. Siggins, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Church History, Yale University, who directed me to Corpus Books. Special mention must be made of the meticulous care with which Miss Carol Steiman, Secretary of the Religion Department, Trinity College (CT), typed the manuscript; she went far “beyond the call of duty” in attending to details. The drudgery of checking the galley proofs was shared with my mother, who checked the manuscript with me, and my father, who accepted graciously our occasional neglect during my visit at their Fort Lauderdale home; my appreciation of their willingness to assist cannot go unmentioned. Finally, I should like to express sincere gratitude to the Rev. Harold C. Gardiner, S.J., for his guidance during the final phases of the project’s completion. For the completed work, however, I accept full responsibility.

RICHARD T. NOLAN

Bristol, Connecticut, 1967