Phoebe, Priscilla, Macrina, Junia and others – women leaders who had a significant role to play in the early church. This included fulfilling their ministerial duties, which for some was as deacons and others as “heads of house” – all serving in good faith and often with the support of their male counterparts. Macy (2011:23) writes that “in the early years of Christianity, women who were designated deacons probably did the same … [duties] that men designated deacons did. Diakonos in Greek just means ‘servant,’ and so the ‘servants’ of the Church did the service jobs. They took care of the poor, visited the sick and those in prison, and generally looked to the upkeep of the fabric of the Church.” However, it appears as if many of the ministries changed direction with the advent of monasteries and convents. Indeed, some abbesses became deacons and there were occasions when women deacons taught other women (p.28). The institutional situation was to change during the ensuing centuries. Caroline Walker Bynum (1987:16-17) notes that around the time of the Middle Ages:

Holy women … were less inclined to institutionalisation than men, and … they often chose a “quasi-religious” status. For example, many chose to be tertiaries, “Individuals who lived in the world but were affiliated with one of the great mendicant orders (usually Franciscan or Dominican) and followed a life of penitential asceticism, charitable activity and prayer.” Such women resided in the world, where they were given greater opportunity “for significant geographical mobility through pilgrimage”