0 in some Churches, a woman who performs particular duties but who is not a deacon
Some churches did ordain women as pastors over congregations of their own, others elected women deaconesses, and a few churches allowed women, as delegates, to sit in their conferences.
The Sisters Evelyn and Miriam, who organized much of this work, were Wesley deaconesses employed in South Africa.
There came one day for consultation a very healthy-looking woman, a deaconess of the Lutheran Church.
Older scholarship wrongly assumed that women were deaconesses, rather than deacons, from the very beginning.
To all intents and purposes, deaconesses already carry out all the functions of deacons except marriage, which deacons hardly ever carry out anyway.
We must emphasise the very real contribution that deaconesses are making in that way.
