“The whole Church has never had a tradition of having deaconesses, but the whole Church has had a tradition of not having them.” — The Disappearing Deaconess examines not just the history of deaconesses but also patristic teaching on male and female and the evolution of ministries within the early Church to conclude that the order of deaconess was inherently problematic for early Christians because it appeared to elevate women over men in the hierarchy of the Church, contrary to Christian beliefs about both the natural order and the divine economy. 

The bulk of this book is my master’s thesis completed in 2018 at the University of Winchester. To that, the book adds two important appendices broadening the scope to include current efforts to create a new order of “deaconesses” (nobody is proposing an order like the old one) as well as the fundamental issue of male and female as understood by the Orthodox Church. Available now in hardback and paperback from all major retailers (e.g., Amazon, Alibris, Barnes and Noble).