"A Byzantine Order for Today?" with Professor Carrie Frederick Frost

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Centre for Hellenic Studies at Simon Fraser University is pleased to present Dr. Carrie Frederick Frost, Western Washington University.

Join us Friday, January 24th at 2:30pm in person at the Bennett Library, SFU Burnaby, Room 7200, or online (https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83927730862), for her talk "A Byzantine Order for Today?: Renewing the Orthodox Christian Office of Deaconess for the Twenty-first Century".

This talk will be moderated by Dr. Evan Freeman, Assistant Professor, Global Humanities and the Hellenic Canadian Congress Chair of BC in Hellenic Studies.

Attendance is free. The event is open to the public and will be recorded.

This programming is made possible thanks to the generous support of the
Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).

ABSTRACT

The first Orthodox Christian deaconess of the twenty-first century was ordained in 2024 in Zimbabwe in answer to decades of calls from around the world to renew the ancient order of deaconess and in response to local needs in the African setting. The ordination of Deaconess Angelic Molen and her current liturgical and pastoral roles overlap but also depart from the rites and roles of a Byzantine deaconess. Why might the roles of a deaconess be different today compared to her Byzantine predecessors? What might this ordination mean for the rest of the Orthodox world? In this public lecture, Orthodox scholar Carrie Frederick Frost of Western Washington University will describe and frame the recent ordination, which she witnessed, within the larger context of the conversation about women’s roles and deaconesses in the Orthodox Church and will address the complexities and significance of renewing a Byzantine order for today.

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY

Carrie Frederick Frost, PhD, is an Orthodox Christian theologian and Assistant Professor of Religion and Culture at Western Washington University. Among her publications is her recent book on women in the Orthodox Church, Church of Our Granddaughters (Cascade, 2023). She is Book Reviews Editor for Journal of Orthodox Christian Studies, Co-chair of the Women and the Church Group of the International Orthodox Theological Association, and Chair of St. Phoebe Center of the Deaconesses. She lives in the Pacific Northwest and is the mother of five and the grandmother of one.

MODERATOR BIOGRAPHY

Evan Freeman studies art and ritual of the Byzantine Empire and cross-cultural interactions in the wider medieval world. He completed his PhD in the Department of the History of Art at Yale University and has held an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at Smarthistory, the Center for Public Art History, and an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the University of Regensburg in Germany. Before joining the Department of Global Humanities at Simon Fraser University, he taught at Queens College, City University of New York, and Portland State University. He has produced videos, essays, an edited volume, and other open educational resources for Smarthistory, Khan Academy, and other digital and public humanities projects. His research focuses on Byzantine ritual objects, mobility, monumental church art, and materiality.