For me, sequential ordination not only devalues the diaconate, but it also devalues the baptismal covenant! If I need to be ordained a deacon before becoming a presbyter so that I can experience ‘servant ministry’ or learn an ‘outward, world facing perspective’ then I have failed to be formed in the baptismal covenant. Ordination as a deacon is a poor way of correcting that problem!

As for who will proclaim the gospel if we don’t have enough deacons after switching to per saltum ordination… then we don’t proclaim the gospel until we **get** it!

Of course, as I moved into the Anglican Communion, I experienced sequential ordination. I did assist my bishop on a couple of occasions, but was in the somewhat unique position of working/being called before and after as the pastor of a Lutheran/Presbyterian congregation. So, for 6 months I was pastor and presided at the eucharist as a presbyter in the Uniting Church in Australia. Then I was ordained a deacon in The Episcopal Church, remained pastor but could no longer preside at the eucharist. Then was ordained a priest and, once again, could preside… How’s that for a very odd transition!

When I was on an Anglican commission to investigate the diaconate (see other comment above) I urged them to make the degree available to all students and suggested that the essence of it should be that it was interdisciplinary — that students would take some theological courses, and some courses from other faculties, arts, or economics or science or whatever. So a deacon could study both theology and, say, community development, or accountancy, or whatever.

The advantage of a priest serving as a deacon for a period is that a priest should, in theory, then be familiar with the liturgical duties of a deacon and should know what to do when serving with a deacon. In practice it doesn’t work like that very often. Many service books have been printed with the deacon’s parts assigned to the priest, because it is assumed that the absence of a deacon is the norm. So even when there is a deacon present, the priest still does the deacon’s bits.

For raising this issue. I could not decide on which way to vote. I agree with some of the observations above that there is a slice of ordinands-to-be (and ordinands) who are rather cynical of the process, and disdainful of the order of the diaconate. Per saltum ordination is a way to disentangle the orders from this distortion.

On the other hand, liturgically at the eucharist, I find the roles of diakonia and prebytery to be very meaningful and fruitful for meditation. At St. Gregory’s Abbey, a Benedictine Episcopal monastery in Michigan, and at St. Andrew’s Abbey, a Roman Catholic Benedictine monastery in California, where I have taken retreats, it is interesting and fruitful to watch and contemplate on the rotation of liturgical roles among the priests/deacons, including the Abbot, at mass.

So, yes and no. I suppose the real question is should reforms seek to structurally obviate particular abuses by obliteration of relationships, or should reforms seek to foster more fruitful paths and disincline from more unfruitful paths. Sorry to have perhaps created a false dichotomy, but I would opt for more of the latter and less of the former. The former usually being unsuccessful, and by the law of unintended consequences to create a new set of abuses.

I think one of the places we need more reflection is the recognition of ordinations other than what we call “ordained ministers” aka presbyters. In our tradition deacons are commissioned from a local church for a temporary time. I think we would benefit from discerning calls to a permanent diaconate; and the relation of diaconate to “ordained ministry”.

Thanks for raising this issue, I always appreciate the opportunity to reflect on it.

I personally would like per saltum ordination, but realize this is controversial. My time as a transitional deacon was only six months. I used the time to train in interim ministry and teach children in our parish. As a late vocation person who had served on a vestry, was a senior warden, sang in the choir, trained accolytes, wrote church bulletins, cooked for the homeless and had a busy professional life as a scientist/manager I felt ready to take on my first interim after that six months. I realized though that that first call needed to be in a relatively healthy parish and asked the bishop that question. If I had been ordained directly to the priesthood, I still would have needed that training. Fortunately it required a period of supervision.

After a couple of years I was oerdained as an Anglican priest mainly because I was visiting congregations 130 miles away in Namibia, and no priests would go to them.

Some years later I was on an Anglican provincial commission to examine the diaconate, because nobody knew what it was. We met for three years at great expense, and produced a report that was brushed aside by the provincial synod. They regarded the diaconate as superfluous and unnecessary (“lay ministers can do everything that deacons do”) but decided that women should be ordained to this unnecessary ministry. That’s when I realised that the Anglican Church had in fact (with a few eccentric exceptions, like me) abandoned ideas of the three-fold ministry, apostolic succession and all that goes with it. That’s when I left to become Orthodox.

After a few years, with some reluctance, I allowed the bishop to tonsure me as a Reader, and eventually ordain me as a deacon. I saw my ministry primarily as evangelism and chuch planting, and training lay worship leaders. But St Stephen and St Philip were both deacons and evanglists, so the ministries could be combined. Every now and again the bishop asks me if I’m ready to be ordained as a priest, and I keep telling him no. I tell him that she shortage of deacons is more serious than the shortage of priests. There are more parishes with no deacons than there are parishes with no priests. I think he regards me as almost as eccentric as the Anglicans did.

But the deacon doesn’t exactly face the world. The deacon faces both ways.