I commend unto you Phebe our sister, which is a servant of the church which is at Cenchrea: Recommendation of Phoebe to the Roman Church (Romans 16:1-2)
I commend unto you Phebe our sister, which is a servant, [ diakonon (G1249 ), or, 'deaconess,'] of the church which is at Cenchrea. The word is "Cenchree," the eastern port of Corinth (see the note at Acts 18:18). That in the earliest churches there were deaconesses, to attend to the wants of the female members, there is no good reason to doubt. So early at least as the reign of Trajan, we learn from Pliny's celebrated letter to that Emperor-1 AD-that they existed in the eastern churches. Indeed, from the relation in which the sexes then stood to each other, something of this sort would seem to have been a necessity. Modern attempts, however, to revive this office have seldom found favour; either from the altered state of society or the abuse of the office, or both. Yet in Protestant Prussia, and in the Lutheran missions of the East, they seem to be a real success.