Church letter

June 2024

Click for the church letter from May 2024

Joy for 30 years of women in the priesthood

The day I wrote this piece, I attended a special, wonderful service at our cathedral; a service that celebrated the 30th anniversary of the ordination of women to the priesthood in the Church of England. Someone said to me just before I went: “Is it only 30 years that women have been priested?” This was said with real surprise. Yes, it is only 30 years since gender equality started to come to the CoE.

Back in 1862, women were first admitted as deaconesses in the CoE, but this as a lay-order, not an ordained role. The first call for the ordination of women was brought to the Lambeth Conference in 1920. In 1975 the General Synod (the governing body of the CoE) said: “There are no theological fundamental objections to the ordination of women to the priesthood.” It was not until 1987 that the first women were ordained as deacons, but still not priests. In 1992, General Synod voted (just) in favour of women priests. Some parishes passed resolutions:

A) women could not be the incumbent, or B) women could not preside at the Eucharist.

It was under these unequal resolutions that the first women were finally ordained as priests in 1994 (the very first women in the Bristol Diocese on 12 March; the first women in the Canterbury Diocese on 8 May). In 2005, General Synod began the process for women bishops. The first female bishop was commissioned ten years later in 2015. In 2019, 26 years after the ordination of women to the priesthood, Bishop Rose, our Bishop of Dover, became the first black female bishop in the CoE.

So today, having attended this wonderful celebration service, I gave thanks for those pioneering women; but I also recognise the pain and battles they went through. I gave thanks for the women priests who have served, and continue to serve, in our own parishes: for Revd Sheila Smallman, Revd Rosemary and Revd Ylva. And, at the end of June, we will celebrate again as Vicki Young is ordained a deacon at the cathedral - she will be priested in 2025. Our parishes, our pastoral care, our worship, would be all the poorer without them. Thanks be to God for their ministry amongst us.

Priestly ministry, and the sacramental ministry of the Eucharist, does not depend upon the person (that is part of the 39 Articles of Religion adopted in 1562). It is God’s ‘calling’ to which we, all deacons and priests, are responding: “There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are varieties of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God at work in all.” I rejoice in the ministry of all who have responded to God’s call, and all who will respond in the future. “You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit.” What joy. Alleluia!

Revd David Commander, Rector and Area Dean