practice was seen as invalid. Art It has been argued that some examples of Christian art reflect the leadership roles of women as deacons including administration of the host, teaching, baptizing, caring for the physical needs of the congregation and leading the congregation in prayers. Some depictions of women in early Christian art in various ministerial roles were, arguably, later covered up to depict men. The fresco in the Catacombs of Priscilla has been claimed as one example of a conspiracy to deny women's involvement in the Eucharist. Another example involves the chapel of St. Zeno in the Church of St. Praxida in Rome. An inscription denoting a woman in the mosaic as, "Episcopa Theodora" was altered by dropping the feminine –ra ending, thereby transforming into a masculine name. Because is the feminine form of the Greek word for bishop or overseer, the inscription suggests that Theodora was a woman who became a bishop; however, this appellation was also originally used to honour the mother of a bishop. Decline of the diaconate including women After the 4th century the role of women as deacons changed somewhat in the West. It appeared that the amount of involvement with the community and the focus on individual spirituality did not allow any deacon who was a woman to define her own office. During the rule of Constantine, as Christianity became more institutionalized, leadership roles for women decreased. It was during the fifth and sixth centuries in the western part of the Roman Empire that the role of deaconesses became less favorable. The councils of Orange in 441 and Orléans in 533 directly targeted the role of the deaconesses, forbidding their ordination. By at least the 9th or 10th century, nuns were the only women ordained as deacons. Evidence of diaconal ordination of women in the West is less conclusive from the 9th to the early 12th centuries than for previous eras, although it does exist and certain ceremonials were retained in liturgy books to modern times. In Constantinople and Jerusalem, there is enough of a historical record to indicate that the diaconate including women continued to exist as an ordained order for most if not all of this period. In the Byzantine Church, the decline of the diaconate which included women began sometime during the iconoclastic period with the vanishing of the ordained order for women in the twelfth century. It is probable