DIACONATE, the order or ministry of a deacon or deaconess. See DEACON and DEACONESS.

(Diaconia,) is also a name still referred to the chapels and oratories in Rome, under the direction of the several deacons, in their respective regions or quarters.

To the deaconries were annexed a fort of hospitals or boards for the distribution of alms, governed by the lay-brothers deacons, called cardinal deacons, of whom there were seven, answering to the seven regions, their chief being called the archdeacon.

The hospital adjoining to the church of the deaconry had an administrator for the temporal concerns, called the father of the deaconry, who was sometimes a priest and sometimes a layman.

At present there are fourteen of these deaconries or hospitals at Rome, which are referred to the cardinals. Du Cange gives us their names: as, the deaconry of St Maria in the Broad-way, the deaconry of St Eustachio near the Pantheon, &c.