Even where women deacons are ordained by laying on hands and epiklesis [an invocation of the Holy Spirit] analogous to the ordination of men deacons as in the Apostolic Constitutions and above all in the later
Byzantine rite, the historical findings do not allow one to speak of the two ordinations as the same," Menke quoted Jorissen.
Vagaggini's scholarship is sound: he marshals evidence on the role of deaconesses from church orders (Didascalia and Apostolic Constitutions), the late fourth-century writings of Epiphanius of Salamis, and the
Byzantine rite of ordination from the earliest extant euchological evidence of Constantinopolitan provenance.
The current service of Baptism in the
Byzantine Rite contains several services generally combined together; these include the churching of the child, the naming of the child, and the exorcisms.
This
Byzantine rite church continues to be administered by the Order of St.
His attempt to relativize its importance in the deaconess' ordination by reference to an epiclesis for minor orders in the Apostolic Constitutions is undercut, however, by his own admission that, "in the
Byzantine rite, the Holy Spirit is invoked upon neither lectors nor subdeacons.
Schisms, particularly those resulting from the christological and trinitarian debates of the 4th-6th centuries, led to the dominance of the
Byzantine rite in the East, the Roman in the West.
Important points are made concerning the
Byzantine Rite (108) and the ways in which a contemporary viewer would have understood God's presence in and for the Altar, with no need to include his overt presence in pictorial form within the Altar.
All the
Byzantine rite Catholic churches (that is, churches whose ritual was not originally in Latin) who looked to the pope as their head have allowed married priests providing they married before they were ordained.
While he speaks of assistance and cooperation, he raises the issue of Uniatism (Christians who use the
Byzantine rite but have been united to Rome since the late sixteenth century).
Robert Taft provides a customarily thorough account of the evolution of the
Byzantine rite, highlighting both the evolution and proliferation of this rite, in which the older and simpler services of Constantinople move in an increasingly complex direction, thanks to Jerusalem influence.
Not only are former Anglican priests who have converted to the Catholic Church allowed to remain married as Catholic priests, but other non-Latin rites of Catholicism, such as the
Byzantine rite, allow married priests.
The
Byzantine rite, however, still celebrates All Saints on the first Sunday after Pentecost.
