Examples from literature

• She thinks we're sure to be deaconesses, at the very least. 
• Some churches did ordain women as pastors over congregations of their own, others elected women deaconesses, and a few churches allowed women, as delegates, to sit in their conferences. 
• The Sisters Evelyn and Miriam, who organized much of this work, were Wesley deaconesses employed in South Africa. 
• The deaconesses date from the first century of the church. 
• There came one day for consultation a very healthy-looking woman, a deaconess of the Lutheran Church.