My son is doing a report on St. Patrick for his upcoming Confirmation and ran across this word: diocanate. It was used in three of his references. He asked me the pronounciation and what it meant. I handed him the dictionary. He said it wasn’t there. I checked. It wasn’t.
I went to dictionary.com. No entry. I went to encyclopaedia.com – two listings: one, one of the original three references in which my son bumped up against this word, and the other used it in the same vein.
Figuring it had a Latin origin, I tried an on-line translator and discovered that “diocanate” in Latin means “diocanate” in English!
I gave up. Told him to finish what he could and that I’d get the correct answer for him tomorrow (today).
So, l’il help? What’s this word mean and how’s it pronounced (I went with: dye-ah-kin-ate)?
Dictionary.com has “diaconal” as “of or pertaining to a deacon or the diaconate,” which I take to mean the deacons as a collective unit. Does that make sense in context?
The context in which the word was used: “St. Patrick entered the diocanate in 417.”
I’d initially thought the word should have been spelled “diaconate” but then thought to myself “Why are they telling us when he was made a deacon and not when he was made a priest or saint?”
Was St. Patrick just a deacon and was never elevated to priesthood?
Given that, any help with pronounciation (it’s an oral report)?
The diaconate was originally the first step in Holy Orders - a person would be ordained as a deacon, serve a period of time under the supervision of a priest, and then would eventually be ordained a priest himself.
That’s how it still works in the Anglican Church, but I understand that nowadays, the Roman Catholic church compresses it and ordains a candidate as deacon and then priest in the same ceremony. Maybe some of our Catholic posters could help on that?
But, I think the context means that S. Patrick was ordained as a deacon first, and then at some later date ordained a priest, and even later, ordained as a bishop.
The diaconate was originally the first step in Holy Orders - a person would be ordained as a deacon, serve a period of time under the supervision of a priest, and then would eventually be ordained a priest himself.
That’s how it still works in the Anglican Church, but I understand that nowadays, the Roman Catholic church compresses it and ordains a candidate as deacon and then priest in the same ceremony. Maybe some of our Catholic posters could help on that?
But, I think the context means that S. Patrick was ordained as a deacon first, and then at some later date ordained a priest, and even later, ordained as a bishop.
There is actually still a separate diaconate from the priesthood in the Catholic church. Deacons can actually be married (if they were before their ordination) but cannot become married afterward. Deacons can do pretty much everything a priest can except for effecting the transubstantiation.
This is something that, to my knowledge, has only become common in the last thirty years or so. I believe the increase in callings to the diaconate has been a response to the clergy crisis in the Church.
My church has both types of deacons: permanent deacons, some of whom are married, who are not on the path to being priests; and transitional deacons who are entering their last year of the seminary (generally, they are ordained deacons about a year before they are ordained as priests, as I understand it).
Catholic deacons have a long and varied history. In some larger cities, they served as the entire staffs of the church diocesan bureaucracy. (At one time, it was the deacons of Rome who selected the pope.) As mentioned earlier, they also served as “priests in training,” a function they still perform* although it has been reduced to a period of about six months theses days.
The permanent diaconate is an effort to return to the earlier church periods in which deacons served many more roles. A man entering the permanent diaconate, today, will never be ordained a priest, (without some serious discussions with his bishop, since seeking the permanent diaconate generally presumes a commitment to that particular office), and may not marry, although most permanent deacons are married before they are ordained. (So a widower cannot remarry and a single man may never marry.)
At a time (say, the fifth century) when the role of deacons was politically and functionally more powerful within the church, noting the date at which a man was ordained deacon gave a certain perspective to how his role in the church was being defined or established.
( [ nitpick ] The diaconate was not the first but the last of the twelve orders leading to the priesthood. There were also archdeacons in some political capacities, but that was not a “step” on the way to the priesthood.) [ /nitpick ] )
He was still very much alive in 417, in his 40s it seems (though his date of birth isn’t conclusively known). As such, it makes sense that he would be becoming a deacon, not a saint.
The church associates different sacraments with different orders.
Baptism - any human with the proper intentions. The ordinary minister is a deacon, priest, or bishop.
Matrimony - the man and woman seeking to marry. (The ordained minister is only the church’s witness, not the minister of the sacrament, although that role may be filled by a deacon, priest, or bishop.)
Anointing of the Sick - reserved to priests and bishops.
Sacrament of Reconciliation (Confession) - reserved to priests and bishops.
Celebration of the Eucharist - reserved to priests and bishops.
Confirmation - reserved to bishops (with the provision that the bishop may delegate that authority to parish priests those who are being received into the church at the Easter Vigil).
Holy Orders - reserved to bishops.
(There are also jurisdictional rules limiting which deacons, priests, or bishops may exerciise their ordained powers in certain cases,)
Minor detail – Like Orthodox, Eastern Rite priests may confirm. How often they function in this role, I’m not clear on, but I recall from discussions on religious boards in the past that they are eligible to do so.
Also worth noting, though not itself a sacrament, is that while any Christian may bless another in his own right, imposition of the Church’s blessing, e.g. the marriage blessing at the end of a marriage service or Nuptial Mass, is reserved to Anglican bishops and priests but is the prerogative of Catholics in holy orders, including deacons. The preaching of a sermon is also the prerogative of a bishop or priest, or of a deacon or layman with consent of the bishop or pastor/rector.
Final note is that Methodists and the various holiness churches deriving from the Methodist tradition also have the order of deacon along with that of elder (=presbyter/priest), generally in the transitional diaconate mode.
Baptists and other congregational-polity churches often have laymen designated as deacons, whose functions generally follow those of the first deacons in Acts: charitable works in the name of the church.
Still, I only missed Reconciliation and Extreme Unction.