The Synod on Synodality’s synthesis document declares: “It is urgent to ensure that women can participate in decision-making processes and assume roles of responsibility in pastoral care and ministry.”

As the father of two young daughters, I feel this same sense of urgency. I hope my two little girls can grow up in a church where they know their full dignity and gifts are honored, because they see the Church uplifting voices and perspectives like theirs. This is about so much more than whether God may someday call them to the diaconate; it is about how they understand their relationship to Him and the way He relates to them. I want them to know that God is as invested in people like them as He is in anyone. And crucially, that God acts through and speaks through people like them, and is not less interested in their voices and ministry because He made them female.

In 2024, the Orthodox Church in Zimbabwe ordained Angelic Molen to the diaconate. When asked what difference this ordination made, a woman in Zimbabwe responded, “We now know that the Church has put its trust in Deaconess Angelic, so we can trust her too.” That’s what this is about: My daughters and the rest of us seeing that our Church is putting its trust in women, and trusts their voices, and will elevate their words and actions because we recognize them as a path through which God speaks and acts.

As our Church continues its discernment, I would hope the question it considers is not, “Can we permit women deacons?”, but rather, “Are we absolutely certain we are justified in withholding the grace of the diaconate from women?” I hope our Church is big enough to contain the possibility and dignity I see in my daughters, and in so many other women.