Subdeaconate

All4Christ

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As far as I know the Greeks don't use this office at all here in the US. Do any of the other jurisdictions use it and if so, aside from their liturgical service, what do they do?
We do (OCA). They perform a lot of leading everything in the altar, reading (depending on the person), preaching at times on Saturday Vespers), performing readers services if needed for daily vespers or Vespers, and various other tasks. It’s one of the offices of the clergy, so they help with all of that. They also tend to do a lot of leadership within the church as a whole.
 
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Chesterton

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We have a subdeacon. He serves pretty much as described above. He's given a homily a couple of times (and they were quite good). He's currently attending St. Vladimir's to be a priest. The congregation supports him by mailing him "proper" hot sauce. :D

New York City!? Get a rope.
 
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Tigger45

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Our local Antiochian parish has at least two sub deacons not to forget the assisting Priest and several readers and cantors. The population of this parish has grown considerably and the Pastor can use all the help he can get.
 
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E.C.

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My dad, OCA, is a subdeacon. On your usual Sunday they are a lot of times the de facto head acolyte/altar server. However, when the bishops visit, I think the heirarchical liturgy actually has different tasks spelled out for two separate subdeacons, and sometimes three. They also have the same responsibilities as readers which mean they also read the Epistles and other readings. Some parishes may include subdeacons in the Epistle reading rotation, some may not.
The parish I attend here in California is ROCOR and usually ROCOR has subdeacons as well, but this particular one does not; though there is a senior altar server who more or less fills in those parts of the role. I've been to Antiochian parishes that had them, but it seems to be the norm more so in those from the Slavic traditions.

Anyone know why the Greeks seem to avoid ordaining lower clergy? Heck even deacons seem fairly rare.
The Greeks seem to have this mindset that the only clergy who "matter" are priests and bishops. They also have a clergy shortage as is with the priests, so it isn't surprising that they would have it with the subdeacons either. From my personal experience with Greek parishes, it seems like the only people who are "allowed" to serve behind the altar are those with some rich familial connection or another. As a whole they seem to be the Episcopalians of Orthodoxy; a lot of money, but not a lot of people.
 
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GreekOrthodox

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The Greeks seem to have this mindset that the only clergy who "matter" are priests and bishops. They also have a clergy shortage as is with the priests, so it isn't surprising that they would have it with the subdeacons either. From my personal experience with Greek parishes, it seems like the only people who are "allowed" to serve behind the altar are those with some rich familial connection or another. As a whole they seem to be the Episcopalians of Orthodoxy; a lot of money, but not a lot of people.

Chuckles, I get that analogy. We are fortunate that we actually do have a deacon, but it took a while to get him ordained. It seems so odd because I've spoken to a number of priests who would LOVE a deacon or two as it would help spread out the workload, not just liturgically, but with pastoral and hospital visits. When I was a Lutheran, I served as an elder for about 6 years. We weren't ordained or anything like that as the LCMS only ordains pastors. However, we served as assistants to the pastor in that we could help with the service such as leading a litany (like a deacon), or hospital visits where the pastor did not absolutely have to be there. We also were divided into zones and were responsible to keep in contact with the 15-20 families in our zone.
 
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