The Anglican Church in Aotearoa[1], New Zealand, and Polynesia is preparing to mark the 40th anniversary since women were first ordained as priests in a provincial region. The New Zealand church was one of the first in the Anglican Communion to ordain women; in 1977 five women were ordained.
A year before that, six women were ordained in the Anglican Church in Canada. In 1974, 11 women were “irregularly” ordained in Philadelphia, two years before women’s ordination was permitted by the General Convention of the Episcopal Church in the USA and three years before the first “permanent” ordination in a provincial region.
The first woman to be ordained in the Anglican Communion was Florence Li Tim-Oi, who was ordained in China in 1944, the reason being the shortage of male priests at that time. She was forced to give up ordained ministry at the end of the war and resumed it in 1971 in Hong Kong, together with two women who were ordained at that time.
The Anglican Women’s Studies Council in New Zealand invited Anglicans in the surrounding provincial regions to mark the 40th anniversary on 3 December, and a celebratory Eucharistic liturgy was created, developed by Archdeacon Carole Hughes of Auckland and a consultant group from the Tikanga, that is, from the three cultural streams within the province.
The new liturgy, to which Helen-Ann Hartley, Bishop of Waikato, and Victoria Matthews, Bishop of Christchurch, also contributed, as well as the aforementioned assistant to the Bishop of Wellington, Eleanor Sanderson, who took care to ensure that the contribution of all women to the leadership of the church in the island regions was recognized, while at the same time emphasizing the ministry of women priests.
16 of the Anglican Church’s regions have already ordained women.
In New Zealand, at least 500 women have been ordained as priests. The first ordination 40 years ago was experienced by Jean Brookes, Wendy Cranston, and Heather Brunton, who were ordained by the Bishop of Auckland. Sherry Baker and Rosemary Russell, meanwhile, were ordained by the Bishop of Waiapu.
“There are stories that need to be retold at times like this, so that they are not lost,” Pastor Jean Brookes, one of the first ordained women in New Zealand, tells Anglican Taonga. “Women have realized an enormous diversity and richness of ministry. For example, we must not forget the significant ministry of the many women who chose to remain deacons, that is, in the ministry to which they were ordained, and who greatly valued the continuity of this particular ministry even as other women moved toward the priesthood.”
“In the past, we often stood up against people who did not accept our ministry,” Rosemary Russell – another pioneer of women’s priestly ministry in her region – told Anglican Taonga.
“We simply had to make the decision to continue, despite the circumstances. At some point, after several years, this problem subsided. People’s fears did not materialize. Today women priests are an inseparable part of the life of the church, and gender no longer makes much of a difference. In essence, one could say that the church today would be shattered to pieces without the ministry of women in the priesthood.”
Source: Anglican News www.anglicannews.org7 November 2017
[1] In the Maori language, Aotearoa means ‘the long white cloud’. https://garaisbaltaismakonis.wordpress.com/about/