Reading

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[Diakon.ru] – The Patriarchal Diaconate

Bless, Master! – this exclamation, given by the deacon, begins almost every divine service with his participation, and this page opens a website entirely devoted to the church deacon in the Orthodox Church. It is church service, because there are social service, administrative, missionary, educational activities, and many other things that are difficult to classify, but we will not address these issues in this site, it’s not their role.

It is divine service, prayerful participation in the Eucharist that we place here as the center of deacon duties, as the Eucharist itself — the main worship service of the Church of Christ — stands at the center of Her life. In this regard, the question arises in general about the place of the deacon in the Church. Indeed, in principle, there is not a single worship service that could not have done without deacon’s participation. And it is no secret to anyone that the participation of the deacon in our worship is thought, first of all, as a decoration of the latter, serves to give it solemnity. Does this mean that the deacon is only a decoration of the service (symbolically, by the way, that the name of the first deacon and martyr means just an ornament: “στέφανος” – “crown, wreath”). Does this mean that the deacon is only some minor decorative element of worship? Recall the history of the baptism of Russia …

When Prince Vladimir asked his envoys, who had returned from distant lands about beliefs that they had seen there, in the face of “boyars, elders and warriors”, they answered: “… And we came to the Germans (ie, Latins) and saw in temples their various service, but beauty did not see any. And we came to the Greek land, and led us to where they serve their God, and we did not know whether we were in heaven or on earth: for there is no such spectacle and beauty on earth , and we don’t know how to tell about it, we only know that God is there with people, their service is better than in all other countries. We can not forget beautythat, for each person, if he tastes sweet, will not take bitter afterwards; neither can we be here in paganism anymore. ” At that time, Rome was not yet separated from the Eastern Orthodox Church, and Russia could be baptized from the Latins, but it was the beauty of the Byzantine rite that determined the future course of our history. (It is interesting, by the way, that the “Latins” subsequently lost the institute of deaconality for centuries – not because of their insensitivity to the beauty of worship? – and only in recent years they have revived the deaconate, putting the main emphasis on his social ministry).

For a number of objective reasons, we are now significantly inferior to Protestants and Catholics in the matter of preaching about Christ. But let us remember that the beauty of our temples, the beauty of the choir singing, the beauty of the service are also such a sermon, and taking care of this external beauty should be inherent to us, as well as taking care of the “ordering of the inner man”, taking care of the beauty of our soul.

Does the deacon always decorate with himself the service so that the worshipers feel in the temple like the ambassadors of Prince Vladimir? Alas, no … But if the materials posted here help a little to change the situation for the better, or at least give a reason to think about this to those who have not thought about it before, then our goal will be considered achieved.

With prayer gratitude and immense gratitude, all additions, corrections, as well as comments on the content and work of this site will be accepted.

If the authorship of any texts on this site is not specifically indicated, then, most likely, it belongs to the author of the site. In some texts of other authors, footnotes with comments of your humble servant may appear, in which case they are marked like this: A-b .

(-Archdeacon Stefan, from the homepage)

 

 

 

 

 

  

[Diaconal Art] FB group in Russian run by canonical Ukrainian deacons.