The 2nd Vatican Council restored the sacramental ministry of permanent deacons with the possibility of local churches to realize it in their realm. This article first sketches the impulses for this restoral by the priests detained in the Nazilager of Dachau and by the vocation of Hannes Kramer, then the biblical impulses and developments of the early Christian Church. In addition, it recalls the disappearance of permanent deacons due to role conflicts between deacons and priests. The awareness of these potentials for conflict is a legacy for the clarification of the restored ministry of deacons, highlighted, too, by Pope Benedict XVI. His magisterium offers stimuli for further reflections on a ministry (ministerium) of female deacons as discussed by the International Theological Commission.
