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A deacon is a member of the diaconate, an office in Christian churches that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions. Major Christian churches, such as the Catholic Church, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Scandinavian Lutheran Churches, the Methodist Churches, the Anglican Communion, and the Free Church of England, view the diaconate as an order of ministry.
The Uniting Church in Australia (UCA) was founded on 22 June 1977, when most congregations of the Methodist Church of Australasia, about two-thirds of the Presbyterian Church of Australia and almost all the churches of the Congregational Union of Australia united under the Basis of Union. According to the church, it had 243,000 members in 2018. In the 2016 census, about 870,200 Australians identified with the church; in the 2011 census, the figure was 1,065,796. The UCA is Australia's third-largest Christian denomination, behind the Catholic and the Anglican Churches. There are around 2,000 UCA congregations, and 2001 National Church Life Survey (NCLS) research indicated that average weekly attendance was about 10 per cent of census figures.
The ministry of a deaconess is, in modern times, a usually non-ordained ministry for women in some Protestant, Oriental Orthodox, and Eastern Orthodox churches to provide pastoral care, especially for other women, and which may carry a limited liturgical role as well. The word comes from the Greek diakonos (διάκονος), for "deacon", which means a servant or helper and occurs frequently in the Christian New Testament of the Bible. Deaconesses trace their roots from the time of Jesus Christ through to the 13th century in the West. They existed from the early through the middle Byzantine periods in Constantinople and Jerusalem; the office may also have existed in Western European churches. There is evidence to support the idea that the diaconate including women in the Byzantine Church of the early and middle Byzantine periods was recognized as one of the major non-ordained orders of clergy.
The Wesleyan Methodist Church of Australia is a Christian denomination with its origins in Wesleyan Methodism. It is the organisational name for contemporary The Wesleyan Church in Australia.
The Presbyterian Church of Australia (PCA) is the largest Presbyterian denomination in Australia.
The Church of Scotland was one of the first national churches to accept the ordination of women. In Presbyterianism, ordination is understood to be an ordinance rather than a sacrament; ministers and elders are ordained; until recently deacons were "commissioned" but now they too are ordained to their office in the Church of Scotland.
Wesley Church is a Uniting Church in the centre of Melbourne, in the State of Victoria, Australia.
The Congregational Union of Australia was a Congregational denomination in Australia that stemmed from the Congregational Church in England as settlers migrated from there to Australia.
The Methodist Church of Australasia was a Methodist denomination based in Australia. On 1 January 1902, five Methodist denominations in Australia – the Wesleyan Methodist Church, the Primitive Methodists, the Bible Christian Church, the United Methodist Free and the Methodist New Connexion Churches came together to found a new church. In polity it largely followed the Wesleyan Methodist Church. This Church established a General Conference, meeting triennially, for Australasia in 1875, with Annual Conferences in the States.
Ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart as clergy to perform various religious rites and ceremonies such as celebrating the sacraments. The process and ceremonies of ordination varies by denomination. One who is in preparation for, or who is undergoing the process of ordination is sometimes called an ordinand. The liturgy used at an ordination is sometimes referred to as an ordinal.
Patricia Anne Brennan AM was an Australian medical doctor and a prominent campaigner for the ordination of women in the Anglican Church of Australia. She became a member of the Order of Australia in 1993.
Genieve Mary Blackwell is an Australian Anglican bishop who has served as an assistant bishop in the Diocese of Melbourne since June 2015, and previously served as an assistant bishop in the Diocese of Canberra and Goulburn from 2012 to 2015. She was the first woman to be consecrated as a bishop in the state of New South Wales and the third in Australia.
Letty Mandeville Russell was a feminist theologian, professor, and prolific author. She was a member of the first class of women admitted to Harvard Divinity School, and one of the first women ordained in the United Presbyterian Church. After earning a doctorate in theology at Union Theological Seminary, she joined the faculty at Yale Divinity School, where she taught for 28 years.
Lydia Emelie Gruchy was a French-born Canadian who became the first woman ordained to the ministry of the United Church of Canada. She was the first woman to enroll in theological studies, to graduate from a Presbyterian theological college and also the first woman to be granted an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree in Canada.
Elizabeth Alfred was an Anglican priest in Melbourne, Australia. She was the first woman to be ordained as a priest in the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne, in 1992.
Marion Macfarlane was the first woman to be ordained in the Anglican Church in Australia. She was ordained to the "Female Diaconate" in 1884 in the Diocese of Melbourne, then in 1886 converted to Catholicism, took the name Sister Mary Euphrasia, and joined the Sisters of the Good Shepherd.
Edith Amelia Kerr was an Australian teacher, headmistress and Presbyterian missionary.
Isabelle E. Merry (1907–2002) was an Australian Congregational minister and chaplain at Queen Victoria Hospital in Melbourne, Victoria. She was the first woman accepted for theological studies at the Congregational College of Victoria. She was ordained to the Christian ministry in 1937, becoming the first woman to be ordained in the state of Victoria. She became a full-time chaplain at Queen Victoria Hospital in Melbourne, and was the first chaplain to be on the staff of a hospital in Australia. In 1976, she was awarded an OBE for her chaplaincy work.
Lilian Lelean Scholes was a Methodist preacher, theologian and author in Melbourne, Australia who in 1934 was the first woman to graduate with the degree of Bachelor of Divinity (Honours) from the Melbourne College of Divinity.
Lilian Wells (1911–2001) was an Australian church leader who served as president of the Congregational Union of Australia, and the first moderator of the New South Wales Synod of the Uniting Church in Australia. She was the only woman to serve in the role of president for the Congregational Union. She served on the joint committee that planned the merger of the Congregationalist, Methodist and Presbyterian churches that formed the Uniting Church in Australia in 1977. She was appointed an Officer of Order of the British Empire in 1977, for her service to the church.
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 Melbourne, The University of. "Ling, Coralie - Woman - The Encyclopedia of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia". www.womenaustralia.info. Retrieved 15 May 2021.
- 1 2 Kenihan, Geoffrey (21 October 1968). "Church will ordain woman". The Age - Google News Archive Search. The Age. Archived from the original on 19 May 2021. Retrieved 15 May 2021.
- 1 2 3 Why does the Uniting Church of Australia ordain women to the ministry of the word? (PDF). Uniting Church of Australia. 1990. p. 7.
- 1 2 3 "Coralie Ling enjoys her purple patch stage of life". Crosslight. 29 July 2019. Retrieved 15 May 2021.
- ↑ "Clergywoman". Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995). 24 October 1969. p. 3. Retrieved 15 May 2021.
- ↑ "Woman ordained as minister". Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995). 20 October 1969. p. 1. Retrieved 15 May 2021.
- ↑ "Women's Museum of Australia". kiosk.pioneerwomen.com.au. Retrieved 15 May 2021.
- ↑ Berger, Teresa (1 January 2001). Dissident Daughters: Feminist Liturgies in Global Context. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 978-0-664-22379-3.
- ↑ "Rev. Dr Letty Russell". World Council of Churches. Retrieved 15 May 2021.
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