Frost says that the ceremony appeared to be a "blending" of the ordination of deacons and the blessing of those entering the subdiaconate, the highest
minor order in the Orthodox Church, possibly to deflect pressure from parts of the church that are resistant to the idea of conferring major orders on women.
Eiffage has already placed its first
minor order with Bioservo.
Another possibility is the
minor order, for which the allowable operations are taking subgraphs and contracting edges.
Despite a couple of minor misstatements (recognition of the Corpus iuris canonici goes back to the Council of Basel, well before 1586 as Witte has it at page 75, and his treatment of the status of marriages of clerics in
minor order at page 117 is not quite correct), Witte's book provides a short but comprehensive account of the history of illegitimacy.
First, the absence of ordained women by this time, due to the disappearance of the ordained female diaconate, may have led the founders and the capital's clergy to entertain not even the possibility of considering the graptai to be ordained, even to a
minor order. Note, by contrast, that the certified orphans/lamplighters were listed as part of the clergy.
* Finally, and most urgently, was the ordination of women deacons an ordination to a major order, that of the diaconate, or was it merely a blessing establishing women in a
minor order or role?
Others argue they belonged to a fourth,
minor order ranked between deacons and subdeacons.
Male chanters were ordained to the
minor order of reader; the only order of female chanters (apart from nuns) for which we have information are in fact deaconesses.
The office of exorcist continued as a "
minor order," a step on the road to priesthood, until 1972 when Paul VI suppressed these orders.
Basing themselves on medieval Western sources they assumed, however, that a woman's diaconate was just a
minor order, a mere "blessing" such as was given to readers, acolytes or doorkeepers.
The cursus honorum comprised the
minor orders of porter, lector, exorcist, and acolyte, and the major orders of subdeacon, deacon, presbyter, and bishop.