On July 29, 1974, 11 women were ordained in an unauthorized ceremony in Philadelphia as the first female priests in the Episcopal Church.
Consternation ensued. Ecclesiastical charges were filed. They were derided as “11 little priestesses, all in a row.”
Fifty years later, almost to the day, the Rev. Dr. Carter Heyward, one of the 11, stood in the pulpit of Philadelphia Cathedral on July 28 to celebrate what she called “a momentous movement,” shared with “women struggling still today to be recognized and celebrated as the religious leaders which women have always been from the beginning.”
“The Philadelphia ordinations signaled that our neighbors are those left standing outside the gates of our ‘business as usual’ — in this case, women left out of the priesthood,” she said. “And so we were called to stand with them, for them, and — a few of us — as them. A few were called to encourage others by being audacious ourselves, not taking no for an answer.”
Quoting the late Rev. Suzanne Hiatt, a fellow member of the 11 who had been the event’s primary organizer, Heyward said the church is often “the caboose on the justice train, waiting to be rear-ended by the movements for justice,” even as it hears “a collective call to be a liberation church.”
Heyward declared that Christians today live amid a “vast harvest of trouble and fear,” citing issues like growing economic inequality, the war in Gaza, and restrictions on access to abortion.”
“This happens in every generation, where most of us have to trouble to resist the fear-based impulse to keep our heads down and our voices muted, so that no one will ask us — you and me — to take sides publicly in the ongoing tension, always fierce and always frightening.”
Heyward praised the Rev. Emily Hewitt, another of the 11 who was present in the cathedral, and the four other women who were ordained with them who are still alive, and who she said were watching the service from home.
She noted that they stood upon the shoulders of other women who had answered God’s call, including three women earlier ordained to the Anglican priesthood in Hong Kong, and those who served as deaconesses and in religious orders.
Preaching at Washington National Cathedral on the same day, the Rt. Rev. Mary Glasspool, Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of New York, praised the Philadelphia 11’s decision to be ordained publicly, as a large group, and following the traditions they had received.
“They could have gone off the grid and written their own liturgical service. They could have held the service at a gymnasium or in a school auditorium. They could have had other priests or lay people who supported them say, ‘We see you as priests, and so you are priests.’
“But the service was held at the Episcopal Church of the Advocate. There were four bishops present, three of whom did the laying on of hands, as is the custom. The women all signed the oath of conformity and the bishops led the service from the Book of Common Prayer — believe it or not, the 1928 Book of Common Prayer.
“People can call these ordinations irregular until the cows come home, but I say, ‘They did it by the book.’ They did not let the principalities and powers take their own tradition away from them. They claimed the Episcopal Church at a time when the church, institutionally speaking, was treating them as a problem the church hoped would go away. What a blessing they have been to us,” she said.
In Glasspool’s diocese, parishes were encouraged to have “A Woman at Every Altar” on Sunday, July 28, in celebration of the anniversary. During his visitation at the Church of the Advocate in the Bronx, Bishop Matthew Heyd invited the Rev. Filomena Servillon to celebrate the Eucharist.
In pastoral letters and statements on social media, many female bishops and priests offered words of gratitude to the women who presented themselves for ordination 50 years ago.
The Rt. Rev. Lucinda Ashby, Bishop of El Camino Real, noted that she had been ordained as a priest when churches were celebrating the 30-year anniversary of the event.
Ashby said she didn’t pay much attention to those commemorative events. “That’s because I took it for granted. Because I could take it for granted. That was the gift these women gave me,” she said.
“They not only had to articulate their call to a church that needed to hear it, but the women were also consistently balancing their call with the right to be called. I have not had to deal with the issue of my ‘right’ to ordained ministry, thank God. In my journey, I have had the privilege, because of the women who came before me, to hone in on my call to ordained ministry and turn it over, deepen it, and learn from it. I could explore the concept of authority given to me by God without having to respond to a questioning of that by others because of my gender — or at least seldom having to do that.”
Just over half a century ago, there were no female priests in the Episcopal Church. Today, 53 women have been elected bishops of the church. One — Katharine Jefferts Schori — was elected primate in 2006.
And the first female bishop-to-be was in the altar party when the Philadelphia 11 were ordained at Church of the Advocate. Barbara C. Harris, then a laywoman and the senior warden at the church, served as crucifer. In 1988, she was elected Bishop Suffragan of Massachusetts.
The church that 50 years ago heaped scorn on these women now takes steps to establish a feast day in their honor. Resolution C023, passed on first reading at the 81st General Convention last month, establishes propers for The Ordination of the Philadelphia Eleven, to be celebrated on July 29. The feast day will be added to the calendar if it is passed on second reading at the next General Convention in 2027.
In a related article on Covenant, longtime TLC contributor the Rev. Lawrence Crumb analyzes some of the misunderstandings that have sprung up about the historic event.
Episcopal News Service reports that screenings and other events marking the anniversary weekend were held in multiple dioceses throughout the church. Further in-person screenings will be available for scheduling, a scheduled basis, and the film’s website features a three-minute trailer.
Back in 1974, Heyward was quoted in The Living Church: “I believe this kind of action will be seen as having been necessary.” Eventually, the Episcopal Church agreed.
