Diaconia

Providing services by giving money food and clothing to the poor, and help to widows, orphans, the imprisoned and impoverished foreigners, through a network of centres.

Diaconia was organized by the Christian Church in Italy, Jerusalem and Greece from the first century AD.

1. (a) Diaconia is highly oriented toward symptoms, rather than problems. (b) A service-centre based approach to care for the dispossessed may miss the majority of them, because it depends on their being sufficiently self-conscious of their status to come to the centre, or socially visible enough to be recruited to come to the centre. This may not be the case where the greatest need exists.

1. Ministering to the sick

1. Providing hospice care