What is it about?
How the earliest systematic canon law presented the role of the clerical grade of deacons. Already they had ceased to be a social reality within the church and had become, in effect, a liturgical function. However, this still had to be integrated with an inherited memory.
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Why is it important?
Deacons are now being ordained as a permanent ministry in the Roman Catholic Church - and in this the complex and messy origins of the current notion is not acknowledged.
Perspectives
Ignorance of the past in any system which values 'continuity' is a recipe for unwarranted claims.
Professor Thomas O'Loughlin
University of Nottingham
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The Order of Deacons in Early Irish Canonical Sources: A Contribution to Understanding the Evolution of a ‘Major Orders’ in the Western Church, Irish Theological Quarterly, February 2017, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/0021140016674277.
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