Recent Examples on the WebThe virus also claimed the life of Shirley Miller, 70, a deaconess who assisted with baptisms and communion. Ray Sanchez, CNN, 18 Apr. 2020 Today, the deaconesses can again access their own cemetery and visit the graves of their sisters.Washington Post, 30 Oct. 2019 But the pope asked some skeptical questions at the assembly about whether the responsibilities of deaconesses in the early church were more circumscribed than those of male deacons. Elisabetta Povoledo And Laurie Goodstein, New York Times, 12 May 2016