Male deacons only: Conservative voices silence women in the church

Orthodox Christians on Facebook reacted largely with anger to a video clip and photos of Anba Boulos, bishop of Ottawa, Montreal, and Eastern Canada, ordaining young women as deaconesses inside a church.

The word shammas (deacon) is Syriac for “servant” and traditionally refers to an assistant to the priest or bishop in performing religious services. For decades, the Orthodox Church restricted this office to men. That history helps explain the fury among conservatives, who saw the bishop’s action heresy, or, as some put it, “signs of union”; a reference to what they view as attempts to draw closer to other Christian denominations.

Opposition surged on conservative pages, especially those linked to the HFaith Protectors Association. The main attack came from the group’s founder, Deacon Dioscorus, who posted Bishop Boulos’s video and called for him to be tried in an ecclesiastical court on charges of liturgical and doctrinal violations. In contrast, other voices welcomed the images of the young women and shared photos of deaconesses from different churches.

The uproar pushed Anba Boulos to issue an apology, saying, “I apologize for using the word ‘deaconess.’” He later issued a second, arguing that the video showed only part of the scene and that he had told the young women they were not allowed to serve in the sanctuary or perform any liturgical readings (public prayers, rites and hymns).

Their role, he said, was limited to helping elderly and sick women, cleaning the church, and chanting hymns to encourage the congregation (in the women’s section).

The Holy Synod’s permanent committee in a brief statement on Friday, Nov. 21 declared Anba Boulos’ ordination of deaconesses to be null and void. Pope Tawadros, the statement continued, had granted Anba Boulos a period of seclusion and retreat at a monastery until the end of the Christmas fast on Jan. 6.

This episode, now seemingly under control, represents another step back from reformist or renewal-oriented positions under pressure from the conservative current.

Anba Agathon, bishop of Maghagha and Al-Adwa, is one of the most prominent figures in this conservative current. It traces its allegiance back to Pope Shenouda III and stands in contrast to a reformist current identified with Pope Tawadros II, who announced at the start of his papacy in 2012 that he aimed to “put the house in order from within.”

Women deacons across the ages

The scene of girls being ordained as deaconesses revived debate over women’s roles in the church. One large current denied that deaconesses ever existed and insisted the diaconate is limited to men, a view that equates the office with ordained ministry, which the Church restricts to men.

This group ignores the fact that the word “deaconess” appears in several sources, foremost among them the Bible itself, which refers to Phoebe, the most famous deaconess, mentioned in the Apostle Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. The text describes her as a diakonos, the term used for those who carry out diaconal service, whether male or female. Another example is the deaconess Olympias, ordained at a young age by Saint Nectarius, who later founded a house for virgins and widows consecrated to God.

The Didascalia (Apostolic Teachings) also explicitly permits  appointing holy women as deaconesses for the ministry of women. It notes they can enter the homes of unbelieving women, whereas a male deacon cannot, and assist in anointing with oil women who are being baptized. “For this cause we say that the ministry of a woman deacon is especially needful and important. For our Lord and Saviour also was ministered unto by women ministers... But let a woman rather be devoted to the ministry of women, and a male deacon to the ministry of men. And let him be ready to obey and to submit himself to the command of the bishop.” Even if this history limited women’s roles to specific functions, it still refutes the claim that the diaconate was always restricted to men.

Another strand within the conservative camp acknowledges the existence of deaconesses but only under specific conditions related to age and type of service. In this view, ordination should not be for young girls but for women who have reached old age, that is, after menopause.

This group cites a video of Pope Shenouda III, in which he speaks about ordaining deaconesses in 1981, noting that he set sixty as a minimum age. At a Holy Synod on May 22, 2010, he issued a decision banning young girls and women from wearing special vestments during the Eucharistic liturgy or standing as a choir at the front of the women’s section to chant hymns in any liturgical service.

The idea of women’s diaconal roles has long been controversial in Eastern churches because it is closely tied to cultural and social contexts. For example, the Syriac Orthodox Church, which shares the same faith as the Coptic Orthodox Church, continues to ordain deaconesses at different ages.

In the early sixth century, regulations written by Mar Yohanna bar Qursos set out rules for deaconesses’ service inside the church. They state that deaconesses are not allowed to give Communion to a boy who is five or older. Ibn Qursos also explains that deaconesses may not enter the altar except when a priest present and there is no deacon. As for Communion and the sacred offerings, he allows a deaconess to pour wine or water into the chalice, but only with explicit permission from the bishop.

Subordination, impurity and exclusion

Questions of purity, impurity, and women’s subordination to men have been contentious throughout church history and are a primary reason women have been barred from service and teaching roles on equal footing with men.

A longstanding tension runs between two contradictory models of women’s place in the Christian story. One emphasizes Christ’s open attitude toward women: he befriended them and spoke to them directly, appeared first to Mary Magdalene after the Resurrection, and did not rebuke the woman with an issue of blood when she touched him. The other model is rooted in the teachings of the Apostle Paul, which subject women to their husbands and call on them to be silent in church.

The situation grew more complicated with interpretations by several early church fathers that placed responsibility for the first sin on women and retold the creation story in ways that reinforced women’s subordination to men. This legacy forged a powerful mental image that excluded women from teaching and ministry and confined their presence to narrow questions, such as when they may enter the sanctuary and whether they may share in certain roles with men.

A study titled “Marginalisation and Exclusion of Women from the Church Governance Structures: Experience in Black South African Churches” notes that church institutions have long relied on selective readings of biblical texts to justify excluding women from authority, such as citing Christ’s choice of only male disciples or the teachings of Paul.

Over the centuries, these interpretations became the basis for subordinating women within church structures. Yet readings of the New Testament reveal women leaders who played an active part in shaping early Christian identity, showing that women’s history in Christianity is far broader than the institution later allowed. Still, many churches resist steps toward full equality, treating the issue within a deeply rooted patriarchal system more than as a theological problem.

In reality, the issue goes beyond teaching or barring women from church offices to a web of practices, most notably portraying marriage as a hierarchy with the man at the top and the woman at the bottom. That image sits within a wider system that has entrenched women’s subordination and erased stories of their contributions to spreading the faith. It is also linked to the influence of certain Jewish ideas on some clergy in how they view women and their status.

Being a woman in a Coptic Church

Alongside this long historical accumulation, the contemporary reality of women in the Coptic Orthodox Church bears a heavy legacy that has profoundly shaped the consciousness of current generations. Almost fascistic patterns have taken root, based on a logic of permission and prohibition, where any reformist move towards women is measured against a strict standard of doctrinal deviation, heresy, or imitation of other denominations.

Pope Shenouda III entrenched these teachings, influenced by Jewish concepts of purity. In one of his sermons he says: “Don’t you dare go while you are menstruating and come forward for Communion. A woman during her period is forbidden from entering the church. So if, hypothetically, we allow her in, should she then go up to the sanctuary and receive Communion? Stop this, and listen to this instead! Look, we honor women, but honoring her does not mean flattering or deceiving her by telling her, ‘Come and receive Communion while you are bleeding.’”

He also received a question on the same topic, recorded in his book “Years with People’s Questions,” and answered that menstruation is a reminder of woman’s first sin.

For more than forty years, this teaching was not only reinforced by the patriarch as head of the Church and a teacher and spiritual leader with distinctive charisma and wide popularity. It was also adopted by most of the clergy, who absorbed the same vision.

This view then passed to the laity, who treated it as the yardstick of sound faith. By contrast, the reformist current is barely audible and often retreats in the face of this heavy legacy, especially on issues such as women’s status and unity with other churches. This has made the reform process, anticipated since Pope Tawadros ascended the papal throne of the See of St. Mark, close to impossible.

Reform going backwards

Anba Boulos’s apology was not an isolated incident. It is possible to trace a series of positions that the official church institution has backed away from as soon as the conservative current raised its voice or objected, particularly on matters related to women. Every attempt at reform, even modest ones, faces intense pressure from hardline voices that quickly push the Church into retreat.

Two cases from 2020 and 2021 illustrate this pattern. The first came when Anba Isaac, bishop of Tama and its surrounding areas, apologized for allowing consecrated women to enter the sanctuary and join the Resurrection procession. He wrote, “I offer my deep apology to the pope, metropolitans, and bishops for what I did without due care. My aim was to gladden the hearts of the consecrated women with the Resurrection. I was wrong and I will not repeat it, in order to preserve the integrity of the rites. I ask you to forgive me and pardon me.”

The second incident was the apology of the nun Arsaneya for reading the Synaxarium (the book of saints’ lives) in one of the retreat houses during the liturgy. “I apologize for what I did; it was an unintentional mistake,” she said.

In February 2023, the concert of musician Hany Shenouda, scheduled to be held at the Anba Rweiss Theater at the Coptic Cathedral in Abbasiya in Cairo, was canceled after widespread objections on social media from the conservative current and Homat Al-Iman supporters, who argued that the venue was not appropriate for this type of performance.

In June 2023, the Church stayed silent during days of online debate between conservative and reformist camps over Anba Matias’s return to Holy Synod meetings, after photos circulated of him with Synod members roughly 18 years after he resigned as bishop of Mahalla Al-Kubra in 2005. He had been arbitrarily removed by Pope Shenouda III. The Church contented itself with leaking the news through one of the pages of influential priests, avoiding any public announcement of steps toward reconciliation with previously sidelined bishops.

Pope Tawadros II himself tried to address the accumulated crises in the file of personal status for Christians, especially by expanding the grounds for divorce. But his statements shifted under sustained attack. In one press interview he said, “The phrase ‘no divorce except for adultery’ was written by Pope Shenouda,” then quickly backed away and aligned himself with Pope Shenouda’s position limiting divorce to adultery and changing religion. To date, the much-touted personal status law that has been promised for 11 years has yet to see the light of day.