I agree completely. Although it is odd to call a deacon 'Deacon So-So' and not a priest 'Priest So-So'.
Though it has largely fallen out of use, this is odd because it is historically incorrect according to excruciatingly correct etiquette.
The style "Father" is ordinarily used in address, but not of oneself or in the third person. Letters in the west were traditionally addressed on the outside "The Rev. So-and-So" and inside you would write "Dear Fr. So-and-So" (though the use of "Fr." as a style for secular priests in the English-speaking countries is relatively late.) The priest at the end of a letter would sign himself "(Rev.) So-and-So" in American Latin etiquette. Similar to how, as Emily Post (1923) writes, that for instance an unmarried woman signs her name at the end of a letter enclosing her title in parentheses:
Never under any circumstances sign a letter “Mr.”, “Mrs.”, or “Miss” (except a note written in the third person). If, in the example above, Sarah Robinson Smith were “Miss” she would put “Miss” in parenthesis to the left of her signature:
(Miss) Sarah Robinson Smith.
I haven’t looked recently, but
America magazine, if I remember correctly, used to do this correctly in their letters column with titles in parenthesis.
Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald)
wrote [
holy-trinity.org] in the 90’s (most relevant portion at the very end):
3. The most formal and conventional way to write a bishop is to address him in the third person and never in the second; however, there are now only a few who are aware of this custom or follow it, in America. Usually one did not start a letter with "Dear," either. The correct way was considered to be plain: "Your Beatitude (Eminence) (Grace), Most Blessed Metropolitan (Most Reverend Archbishop) (Right Reverend Bishop) (NAME)!. Priests never refer to _themselves_ as "father" in their conversations with each other, although they certainly may address others as such. Likewise, no priest should inform the bishop, either in person, on the phone, or in writing, that it is "Father" so-and-so who is speaking or writing. That means it would be wildly inappropriate for a priest or deacon to call me or write to me and say, "This is Father...." or write "Yours truly, Father...." The priest or deacon is not in any respect "father" to the hierarch, while the hierarch is indeed "father" to the priest or deacon. Neither is one priest "father" to another. It should be kept in mind that bishops routinely extend the courtesy of addressing priests and deacons as "father," but this is clearly a courtesy and does not license the priest or deacon to refer to himself that way to the bishop. Priests and deacons, therefore, should refer to themselves, and sign their letters, according to their rank: Archpriest or Priest "X", Deacon "X". The laity use their Christian names in such cases and not their titles. (Likewise, a Priest conventionally would begin a letter to a fellow priest with "Dear Father," but end it with "The Priest (X).")
We see this also on commemoration slips when we write “The Priest Robert” not “Fr. Robert” not just to be formal, but because we are not addressing him.
