Saint Apollonia - Woman Deacon and Martyr - Connection to the Case for Women's Ordination
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Saint Apollonia, by Francisco de Zurbarán, Museum of Louvre, from the Convent of the Order of Our Lady of Mercy and the Redemption of the Captives Discalced of Saint Joseph (Seville).
February 9 is the feast day of 3rd century deaconess and martyr Saint Apollonia. Despite resistance to restoration of the women’s diaconate, her story gives evidence to the fact that the women’s diaconate is nothing new. Women were deacons and there is no justification to exclude us from this vocation now. And as for priesthood — according to ancient tradition, women or men on the way to martyrdom had the power to forgive sins. This is a function of priesthood. Women were part of this and there is no reason that we should be excluded from it today.
Remembrance of Apollonia gives us an opportunity to learn more about women deacons and her role — as a woman — in priesthood
Going Deeper
Saint Apollonia was a deaconess who lived in the early part of the third century. She suffered martyrdom during an uprising against Christians in Alexandria, Egypt. Her story records that after being brutally beaten, she jumped into a fire in order to avoid being forced to recite blasphemous sayings. [1] Her torture included having all of her teeth violently pulled out or shattered. Because of this, she is held as patron of dentistry and those suffering from toothache or other dental problems.
Her martyrdom is said to have happened before the Decian persecution ordered by Roman Emperor Trajan Decius in 250 AD. [2] In a letter addressed to the Bishop of Antioch, Dionysius[3], the Bishop of Alexandria (247–265) records details of her martyrdom along with the sufferings of his people. [4] After describing how a Christian man and woman were killed by the mob, and how the houses of Christians were pillaged, Dionysius writes:
At that time Apollonia, parthénos presbytis [meaning virgin priest but she is remembered in today’s liturgical calendar as deacon] was held in high esteem. These men seized her also and by repeated blows broke all her teeth. They then erected outside the city gates a pile of wood and threatened to burn her alive if she refused to repeat after them impious words (either a blasphemy against Christ, or an invocation of the heathen gods). Given, at her own request, a little freedom, she sprang quickly into the fire and was burned to death. [5]
What Apollonia’s Martyrdom Means In the Context of Women’s Ordination — Martyrs Were Recognised to Have ‘The Power of the Keys’ — The Power to Forgive Sins — This is the job of a priest and women martyrs like Apollonia were included in it.
Throughout the Church’s history, there have been many women and men who witnessed to their Christian faith unto death. Martyrdom does not distinguish biology.
According to the Church’s tradition, anyone — woman or man — on the way to martyrdom had the power to forgive sins. This is a function of priesthood. The Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus (3rd cent) also says that any confessor who had been imprisoned for faith automatically attains the rank of presbyter (priest) in the Roman communities. [6]
The martyr St. Catherine of Alexandria is shown to have the ‘power of the keys’ — the power to forgive sins — by virtue of her journey to martyrdom. In this engraving by Albrecht Dührer, the rack reminds us of her torture, the throne and sword of how she reigns with Christ.
Saints Irenaeus (2nd cent) and Cyprian (3rd cent) applies this power of martyrdom equally to female and male confessors. It underlines that in the early Church, women, just as men, shared in the ‘power of the keys’ — binding and loosening on behalf of Christ. The martyr St. Catherine of Alexandria is shown to have power in the engraving by Albrecht Dührer. The engraving includes a set of keys referencing ‘the power of the keys’. (see left).
Apollonia as Woman Deacon
Gary Macy's book, The Hidden History of Women's Ordination: Female Clergy in the Medieval West, and Kyriaki Karidoyanes Fitzgerald's book, Women Deacons in the Orthodox Church: Called to Holiness and Ministry both provide information about women’s ministry in the early Church. This is an era of Church history that has been diminished, suppressed, and nearly forgotten.
Restoration of the ordained women’s diaconate was recently considered at the Vatican’s Synod on the Amazon. From the final document, we know that the question has been tabled for further study:
"103. In the many consultations carried out in the Amazon, the fundamental role of religious and lay women in the Church of the Amazon and its communities was recognized and emphasized, given the wealth of services they provide. In a large number of these consultations, the permanent diaconate for women was requested. This made it an important theme during the Synod. The Study Commission on the Diaconate of Women which Pope Francis created in 2016 has already arrived as a Commission at partial findings regarding the reality of the diaconate of women in the early centuries of the Church and its implications for today. We would therefore like to share our experiences and reflections with the Commission and we await its results."
Tens of thousands of women served as fully ordained deacons in Catholic parishes during ten long centuries. Some of them ministered in Italy and Gaul, but the vast majority lived and worked in Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine and Egypt. At that time the Orthodox East was still part of the Catholic Church. Learn more about them through the work of our member group, Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research here: The Ancient Deaconesses — Women Who Were Ordained Deacons
Women’s Ordination Worldwide’s position paper on restoration of the ordained women’s diaconate is here: WOW Supports Restoration of the Ordained Women’s Diaconate
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prepared by -Therese Koturbash, Women’s Ordination Worldwide Communications Team
-Therese Koturbash, BA, LLB, GDCL served as Canadian Delegate to Women’s Ordination Worldwide from 2008 to 2013. For all five of those years, she was elected member of WOW's four person International Leadership Circle. She has also been the National Coordinator of Canada's Catholic Network for Women's Equality. Today, Therese serves on WOW’s Communications Team and is a volunteer with WOW member group, Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research. Her paid work is as a family attorney.
Footnotes
Belote, Olivia, Being Seen: An Art Historical and Statistical Analysis of Feminized Worship , DigitalCommons@Macalaster College, April 4, 2011, p 26.
Saint Apollonia, wikipedia, February 9, 2020.
In an early discrimination against women, Dionysius created a rule for his local dioces ethat forbade women who had their periods to approach the altar, receive holy communion or even enter a church. "Let them pray elsewhere". See womenpriests.org, Timeline of Women 200-300 AD. Viewing women to be ritually unclean during menstruation is one of three historical reasons women came to be excluded from priesthood. The other two reasons? Women’s supposed inferiority to men and women being the source of sin (Eve). Women’s exclusion from priesthood rests on social prejudice and not scripture, theology or tradition.
Long extracts of the letter have been preserved in Eusebius' Historia Ecclesiae.
op cit., wikipedia.
Wijngaards, John, Women Martyrs, www.womenpriests.org
Harney, Eileen Marie, An Art Historical and Statistical Analysis of Feminized Worship, a thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Ph.D. Graduate Department of Medieval Studies University of Toronto, p 13
