Deacon Services
Each of the liturgical services of the Byzantine Catholic Church, with the exception of the Divine Liturgies and the sacraments, can be celebrated without a priest; the priestly prayers and blessings are omitted, and certain other traditional changes are made. This article on Reader Services provides a (proposed) order for these celebrations.
In the Byzantine tradition, a deacon leading services in the absence of a priest did so as if he were a layman (but vested in his proper ordinary garment, the exosason). At one time, the MCI website provided here a set of experimental rubrics that gave an expanded rule to the deacon in theses situations. However:
- they provide less helpful than anticipated, and
- our official service for Typika and Holy Communion, led by a deacon, has been established for the one case where a deacon's role (in distributing Communion to the faithful) is vitally useful.
Therefore, the experimental rubrics here have been removed, and deacons are encouraged to make use of the guidelines for Reader Services instead.