The Experience in Anglicanism

by Hugh B. McCullum (see biography)

from The Ordination of Women: Pro and Con, pp. 136-151,
edited by Michael P.Hamilton and Nancy S.Montgomery, Morehouse Barlow Co, 1975.
Republished on our website with the necessary permissions.

From the earliest days of the church to the present time, much of the history of the role of women in the church is shrouded in silence or the subject of much speculation and little documentation. Paul's controversial statements, the place of the early deaconesses, and other biblical references to the ministry of women offer relatively meagre information.

Through the early church and the middle ages even less is recorded. Although it is known that abbesses wielded enormous power, rivalling that of many bishops, it is equally clear that they were not considered part of the sacred ministry.

Progressing through the Protestant Reformation, one finds little change in attitude or practice and it is not until modern times that the issue of the relationship of women to the threefold ministry is seriously considered.

With the approach of the twentieth century, more and more women came into the public life of the church, spurred on perhaps by the suffragettes. In 1862, the ancient order of deaconesses, lost for more than fifteen hundred years, was restored when the Bishop of London ordered a deaconess with the laying on of hands. A few years later, the Bishops of Alabama and New York followed suit and the 1889 General Convention authorized the setting apart of deaconesses by canon.

By 1920, the Lambeth Conference of all Anglican bishops in the world, meeting every ten years, was to assert that the Diaconate (the revival of which ancient office was hailed with thankfulness by the Lambeth Conference of 1897) should be canonically and formally recognized in the several Provinces; and our advice is that, so far as possible, the proper steps should be everywhere taken to secure the restoration of the Order of Deaconesses. (1)

The conference defined the office as a ministry of bodily and spiritual succor, which was, clearly, to follow the lines of the male diaconate of the ancient church, rather than any modern version where deacons were largely seen as apprentice priests.

The same conference laid out a traditional format for ordination which was to be done by a bishop with the laying on of hands, thus giving authority to fulfill the office of deaconess.

Nowhere does this meeting declare women to be deacons or to have any other ministry. They can prepare people for baptism and confirmation and perform baptisms in emergencies. They may preach or say the offices with special permission from the bishop and are allowed to counsel women. No mention of administering the chalice is made.

It is not specifically spelled out by resolution that deaconesses are in Holy Orders, although resolution 48 (Lambeth, 1920) says in Part, “the Order of Deaconesses is for women the one and only Order of the Ministry which has the stamp of Apostolic approval.”(2)

At any rate, only ten years later the bishops, again meeting at Lambeth, stated that the Order of Deaconesses was not part of the threefold ministry, but rather was distinct from and complementary to the historic orders of the church.

In order to clarify the ambiguity of these statements about the status of deaconesses, the 1968 Lambeth Conference reaffirmed the statement of the Committee on the Position of Women in the Councils and Ministrations of the Church (Lambeth Conference 1920) which reads,

In our judgment the ordination of a Deaconess confers on her Holy Orders. In ordination she receives the “character” of a Deaconess in the Church of God; and, therefore, the status of a woman ordained to the diaconate has the permanence which belongs to Holy Orders. She dedicates herself to a lifelong service.(3)

It seems appropriate at this point in a brief history of the role of women in the church, leading up to the experience of Anglicanism, to examine in some detail the diakonia.

Certainly all available evidence indicates that the rediscovery of the New Testament concept of the diaconate, which led to the creation of various kinds of orders for deacons and deaconesses in the nineteenth century, is effecting drastic changes in this ancient order of the ministry; “clearly a ministry to which women are admitted in the ancient church.”(4)

The Anglican communion has, it seems, as confused a position on the diaconate in the twentieth century as do other churches. To most, it has for the last one hundred years or more been merely a stepping stone to the priesthood. Occasionally one hears of a perpetual deacon (surely a misnomer) who is usually a retired person wishing to fill a life of service in some other capacity than that of layman. In fact, to many Christian denominations the diaconate is an attempt to bring the laity and the clergy closer together by defining the duties, authority and status of the deacon.

In 1878, Lambeth sidestepped the issue by referring a question from the West Indies about a permanent diaconate back to the various provinces and national churches. Consequently, there is still a variety of practice, although most of the larger churches within the communion—American, English, Canadian, Australian and others—regularly ordain women to the diaconate, using the term “deacon” rather than “deaconess” as identification.

Although it is only ten years since the late Bishop James Pike of California ordained deaconess Phyllis Edwards to the diaconate, conferring on her the stole and New Testament as historic marks of the order, one can readily recall the storm that raged about that controversial action—an action that now rarely merits even a paragraph in church papers. In 1970, the Canadian church followed suit, by officially declaring deaconesses to be within the diaconate.

By 1972, a special paper of the United States House of Bishops was to declare:

In our mind, the fact that women are accepted as Deacons is true to the New Testament evidence, and may well lead to a long-needed, fresh statement of the work of the ordained Deacon.(5)

Whatever the old controversies about women deacons, the service aspects of the “new/old” concept of the diaconate seem to be accepted fully today and open to both men and women.

But it also raises serious questions for women seeking ordination to the priesthood as the United States bishops' report notes. Certainly the diaconate of the New Testament has been rediscovered and fresh statements of that honorable calling are appearing with some regularity. Few question its scriptural authority or the right of women to be full and equal members.

However, it is not the crux of the issue since redefinition seems to indicate that becoming a deacon is not necessarily an apprenticeship to the priesthood although all those aspiring to the priesthood must first become deacons. Therefore, while it could be seen as an order of service to the poor, the sick and the dispossessed, it does not make ordination to thc priesthood one whit closer for women who feel they might have a vocation in this direction. In fact, it might be said that reopening the diaconate to women and redefining that order effectively prevents women from going on to be priests.

Says the House of Bishops report: “We have not come to the core of the matter until we look at Priesthood and Episcopacy.”(6)

Over the centuries, there was little known discussion of the matter and it was not until 1935 that Anglicanism gave even the possibility any serious consideration. In that year a commission on the whole ministry of women, established by the convocations of Canterbury and York, reached the conclusion that there were no compelling theological reasons for or against the ordination of women.

However, citing tradition as a valid criteria, the commission pointed out that up to the time of its report, the continuous practice of the church had always been a male priesthood and affirmed this for the church of today.(7)

There the matter stood for almost another ten years. Ordained women priests were simply not part of the Anglican tradition despite the fact that other churches in the reformed tradition had, by this time, moved tentatively to allow women ministers. In fact Anglicanism, like most branches of the Catholic Church, was hesitant about admitting women to any role in the full life of the church during this period. It was rare to hear of women serving on vestries, synods, conventions, convocations, at the altar or in any other capacity open to laymen. They were, in most provinces of the world-wide Anglican communion, banned by canon from holding any office other than in purely women's organizations. In 1946, the Episcopal Church's General Convention admitted its first female delegate.

However, practical expediency has a way of surmounting even the most traditional obstacles. It was nothing more unusual than a shortage of priests toward the end of World War II that saw the first female priests ordained in the Anglican communion.

Bishop R.O. Hall of the Diocese of Hong Kong and South China, isolated in 1944 from the Chung Hua Sheng Kung Hui (Chinese Holy Catholic Church), by the war, was faced with a serious clergy shortage. On neighboring Macao he had no priest. A deaconess, well qualified and of great devotion to the church, was attempting to look after the large parish. Hall, with permission of his synod, but not the whole Chinese church, ordained Miss Li Tim Oi to the priesthood. The Reverend Li Tim Oi had functioned only very briefly as a priest when her ordination was repudiated by both the Archbishops of Canterbury and York. She resigned her orders voluntarily and moved back to the mainland where it is believed she still lives quietly in a South China village.

Bishop Hall was not daunted by the unilateral action of the two English provinces. At the end of the Japanese war, and before the Chinese civil war divided his diocese, he submitted a resolution to the General Synod of the Chinese Church suggesting that ordination of deaconesses to the priesthood be allowed for an experimental period of twenty years.

The synod referred the matter to the 1948 Lambeth Conference. (The bishops of the communion were meeting for the first time since 1930 because of the interruption of World War II.) The Chinese church wanted to know if this proposed experiment would be within Anglican tradition and order.

A Lambeth committee in 1948 said it would not, “for Anglican tradition and order have certainly not hitherto recognized or contemplated the ordination of any women to the priesthood.”(8) Lambeth instead pressed for renewed emphasis on the role and work of deaconesses.

But the die was cast and between 1948 and 1968 when Lambeth formally studied and debated the question of women in the priesthood, a number of important studies and theological discussions took place.

In 1962, Canterbury and York established a commission to study the matter in the Church of England. It was four years in preparation and in 1966 Women and Holy Orders was published and used later as a study guide for the bishops at Lambeth in 1968.

The report stressed that it had been asked to examine, rather than advise, on the question of women in Holy Orders. “Had the commission been called upon to advise.... its members would have found themselves divided.”(9)

The commission did point out, however, that the church did not provide any channel for women who felt they had a vocation to the priesthood to exercise that vocation. After examining all the pros and cons—and finding more cons than pros—the report recommended against the ordination of women but strongly urged a new look at the whole concept of ministry. There could be, the report argued, other forms of ministry than the priesthood open to women and the thorny question of their ordination only detracts from the real need for a redefinition of ministry.

At the same time that the English Church's commission was recommending against the ordination of women, the American House of Bishops in 1966 was receiving a report it commissioned “On the Proper Place of Women in the Ministry of the Church.” Following this report, Lambeth 1968 was asked to study the issue. Other churches urged its inclusion on the agenda for the bishops who met in the summer of 1968 to ponder and pray about such diverse matters as unity, racism, the Biafran war and polygamy.

The conference met for more than a month and seriously considered the issue. However no decision was made other than to say that arguments for and against the ordination of women were inconclusive. It also requested every national and regional church or province to give careful study to the question of the ordination of women to the priesthood and to report their findings to the Anglican Consultative Council which would make them available to the rest of the communion.(10) The conference also recommended that before any regional or national church go ahead and ordain women as priests, it should seek the advice of the newly formed Anglican Consultative Council.

The Consultative Council, a creation of Lambeth 1968 was to have an executive role for the worldwide communion between meetings of Lambeth. Made up of episcopal, clerical and lay representatives (either two or three) from each nationa!, regional or provincial church under the presidency of the Archbishop of Canterbury, it meets every two years in different locations around the world and has no power other than a consultative role. Its first and only secretary-general is Bishop John Howe, with headquarters in London.

The council was faced immediately, at its inaugural session in Limuru, Kenya, in 1971, with the action passed on to it by Lambeth.

At Lambeth, the bishops met for about two weeks in subcommittees, within three specific sections—faith, ministry and unity. The one dealing with the ordination of women was under the chairmanship of Bishop W.W. Davis of Nova Scotia in Eastern Canada.

Under the general heading of “Women and the Priesthood” the subcommittee reported to the Lambeth section on ministry that theologically, socially and culturally they could find no conclusive reasons for withholding ordination from women.(11)

As mentioned earlier in this chapter, Lambeth 1968 cleared the way, or regularized—to use a favorite Anglican expression—the ordination of women to the diaconate and a number of churches including the American moved to implement this decision.

The special General Convention of the Episcopal Church at South Bend, Indiana, in 1969 authorized a change in canon law to allow women to become layreaders and to administer the chalice. In 1970, at the Houston General Convention women were formally admitted to the order of deacon under the same regulations as men. Insofar as the diaconate was concerned women were truly in the sacred ministry.

But the battle-lines were quickly drawn where the priesthood was concerned. Around the worldwide communion, the issue of women priests became recognized as a matter of growing importance and divisiveness. Lambeth had asked the churches to study the issue and report to the Anglican Consultative Council. Some moved immediately to affect studies, others reacted as though they wished the request would be forgotten.

Archbishop Howard Clark, then primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, said, following Lambeth, that he wished the bishops had made a decision “then and there” and that waiting would only prolong the agony. The late Bishop Stephen Bayne, chairman of the committee that prepared the special United States House of Bishops report in 1972 said: “I don't like the pain and divisiveness it will cause. I wish it would go away. But the question is here now. It's an issue we've got to face.”

But at the same 1970 convention in Houston that formally admitted women to the diaconate, a narrow margin of votes in the clerical order of the House of Deputies defeated a recommendation from the Joint Commission on Ordained and Licensed Ministries that had recommended that all orders of ministry—deacons, priests and bishops—be opened to women immediately.

Despite the fact that the Triennial Meeting of the Episcopal Church Women voted overwhelmingly (222-45) to endorse the report, the clergy in the House of Deputies requested and received a vote by orders. Under the controversial voting procedures that require equally divided votes of any diocesan delegation to be counted as negative, the clergy defeated the ordination and consecration of women, although the laity passed the motion. The defeat by clergy prevented the House of Bishops from considering the report.

Shortly after Houston, in February 1971, the inaugural meeting of the new Anglican Consultatives Council tackled the prickly question head on.

Lambeth 1968 had asked all the Anglican churches to study the ordination of women to the priesthood. By the time the fifty-five delegates reached Limuru, a conference center some thirty miles from Nairobi, eight churches had begun work on their studies but none had communicated the results to Bishop Howe's office. The council might well have decided to postpone any decision on the ordination of women until 1973 because of a shortage of information. However, Gilbert Baker of Hong Kong had asked for the advice of the council because his diocesan synod had overwhelmingly voted to approve the principle of the ordination of women to the priesthood.

Almost thirty years later, the same diocese which had ordained the Reverend Li Tim Oi was back again. This time, with its connection to the mainland Chinese church severed, it was really an autonomous diocese because of the suppression of the Chinese Holy Catholic Church (Anglican), although it was in a loose association with the bishops of Southeast Asia.

The Limuru meeting was faced immediately with a challenge to its authority although it was merely an advisory or consultative body as its name implied. Nonetheless, it reassured Bishop Baker that if he wished to go ahead the council would use its influence to see that he would not be cut off from the rest of Anglicanism.

By an incredibly close margin, (24-22) the bishops, clergy and laity decided that any bishop in the communion, with the approval of his provincial or national synod, could ordain a woman to the priesthood. The meeting asked also for a communication from all member churches to be forwarded to the next meeting of the council at Dublin, Ireland, in 1973. (12)

While the decision was clear insofar as Hong Kong was concerned, the council readily admitted that its power was limited.

The council had been informed that provinces were still studying the question and it would have acted improperly if it had either prejudged their findings or taken it upon itself to decide questions which lay within their competence. But, as member after member made clear in the debate, it would be still more improper to postpone whatever decision lay within the power of the council.(13)

It is interesting to note that the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Michael Ramsey, president of the council, opposed the decision although not on theological grounds. He suggested the council did not have the authority to deal with Bishop Baker's request.

During the debate, council members were informed by Dr. Philip Potter, now General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, that seventy-two member churches approved the ordination of women while one hundred and forty-three did not. The latter were made up almost entirely of four non-Roman Catholic member communions—Anglican, Orthodox, Old Catholic and Pentecostal. While these figures have undoubtedly changed today, the ratio will remain about the same and, as we shall see later on, is a question to be raised in terms of interchurch relations.

Eight months after Limuru's hard-fought decision Bishop Baker ordained the Reverend Jane Hwang and the Reverend Joyce Bennett, two experienced long-time deaconesses (deacons), to the priesthood after receiving the support of his diocesan synod and the approval of the bishops of Southeast Asia. Both women occupy large parishes and Baker has subsequently ordained a third woman priest.

The American Church established a House of Bishops Commission under Bishop Bayne to study the ordination of women so the subject could be discussed prior to the 1973 meetings of the General Convention at Louisville and the Anglican Consultative Council at Dublin.

If 1971 was an historic year with the Limuru decision and the Hong Kong ordinations, 1972 was a year for consolidation, study and preparation for 1973, when again the national churches would be faced with further decisions. The Church of Burma approved the ordination of women and decided to implement the decision when circumstances warranted it. New Zealand approved the principle but decided not to implement it until after Dublin in 1973. The South Pacific Anglican Council turned thumbs down.

The United States House of Bishops met at New Orleans to study Bishop Bayne's report, and voted seventy four to sixty one with five abstentions for the right of women to be ordained priests and consecrated bishops. Once more, the vote was only advisory and carried no canonical authority.

Other provinces were busy studying and preparing papers, for 1973 was to be the year of decision, if not of ordination, in the Anglican communion.

Wales said it could find no reason against the ordination of women but made no further decision. Polynesia flatly favored the action and the bishops of Southeast Asia decided not to oppose the ordination of women if the rest of the communion approved it. They had already given Bishop Baker tacit approval.

The General Synod of the Church of England passed the decision back to the dioceses, asking them if (a) they accepted the principle of the ordination of women and (b) if they considered subsequent action to be desirable. To date no further action has been taken.

The Anglican Church of Canada, meeting in May 1973 in Regina, Saskatoon, clearly approved the principle of women priests but declined to allow any implementation of the principle until such time as the bishops worked out a pattern for the whole church that would include an educational program.

The Anglican Consultative Council moved to Dublin for its second meeting with this mass of documentation. Hong Kong had ordained and not one diocese had ceased to remain in communion with it. But the council was feeling tender for there had been criticism in some quarters that it had overstepped its terms of reference in supporting Hong Kong's decision by however narrow a margin in 1971. It reaffirmed that its function was only consultative. “It is not possible for the Council to adopt any resolution which would force a member church to ordain women or to refuse to. It does not have this power. It does not wish to have it.”(14)

After what many delegates referred to as an inordinate amount of debate, Dublin decided to reaffirm its actions at Limuru two years earlier, but this time by an overwhelming margin. They added a rider that recognized the ecumenical implications of any decision to ordain women by stating clearly that the Anglican Communion must make its own decision and that these decisions must be made at the national or regional level.(15)

The high moment of drama came when the Louisville Convention of the Episcopal Church, meeting in September 1973, once more rejected the principle of the ordination of women to the priesthood. It was again in the House of Deputies where a complicated voting procedure saw among the clergy 50 dioceses in favor, 43 opposed and 20 delegations divided; in the laity 49 dioceses were in favor, 37 opposed and 26 divided. Fifty seven votes were needed to pass. Under the voting system used at Louisville, split votes among delegations are recorded as negative. On a straight one-person/one-vote system, the motion would have passed by a slim majority and been referred to the House of Bishops which, earlier in New Orleans by a straw vote, had recorded its approval. As it stands, the vote never got to the House of Bishops.

The bitterness expressed by women deacons has not died down in the Episcopal church as earlier chapters in this book bear witness.

The most important development to date in the Anglican Church of Canada, which will no doubt have widespread implications for the rest of the communion, was the decision in mid-June, 1975, to allow diocesan bishops to proceed with the ordination of women to the priesthood whenever they see fit.

The General Synod, meeting at historic Quebec City, overwhelmingly endorsed the principle and went on to approve, by an even wider margin, any diocesan, acting within the canons of his jurisdiction (provincial and diocesan) and in consultation with the House of Bishops, to ordain women to the priesthood.

Action to amend canons in various jurisdictions will likely take some time and bishops have indicated they will not make any moves until after the October, 1975 meeting of the House of Bishops. However, it is safe to say that the Anglican Church of Canada will have validly ordained and recognized women priests by early 1976.

The voting was clear throughout the debate. On the first resolution reaffirming the principle, 88 lay delegates, 75 clergy and 26 bishops were in favor while only 18 lay, 30 clerical and eightbishops disapproved. Totals were 189 to 56.

In the second vote the action was even more substantial. For implementation of the principle were 95 laity, 86 clergy and 27 bishops, with 9 1ay, 19 clerical and 7 episcopal votes opposed.

After almost twenty centuries of church it seems as though the church has followed in the way it has always gone, especially among Anglicans; to move slowly, to try to achieve consensus before changing faith and order in any drastic way, and to try, wherever possible, to avoid schisms that rent the earlier church on doctrinal matters.

Especially where it may affect the relations the Anglican branch of the Catholic church has with its sister Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches, the ordination of women raises serious questions.

The Anglican Consultative Council made it clear in 1973, at its Dublin meeting, that consideration should be made of relations with other churches but it should not influence the final outcome. “ To many churchmen this is a key decision and the attitudes of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches. which now do not ordain women to the priesthood and appear unlikely to do so in the forseeable future, give some cause for this concern.

In June of 1973, a statement by the Orthodox members of the official Anglican-Orthodox Consultation made it clear that any move by Anglicans to ordain women priests would have “a decisively negative effect on the issue of the recognition of Anglican Orders and on the future of AnglicanOrthodox dialogue in general.”(18)

While, on its face, this is a blunt statement, it is not totally negative. One Orthodox observer to the 1972 General Synod of the Church of England is quoted in the official report. What he says is of interest, “though the Church of England should listen to what other churches have to say, to find out what they are witnessing to, it should not spend its time calculating its moves on what others will do. What matters is what is right, what is doctrine, not what is expedient.” And he himself found no theological impediment.(19)

Roman Catholic opinion is more fluid than the Orthodox although the official position, as outlined by Pope Paul in his motu proprie of September 1972, bars women from even the smallest formal role in the church. There are many people in the Roman Church who believe seriously that they should open their doors to women priests—some members of the hierarchy, notably Cardinal Flahiff of Canada, are pushing for a study in this direction. Indeed, such people as Gregory Baum and Hans Küng look to the Anglican church for leadership in the opening of the doors to women priests.

A statement by the Joint Commission on Ecumenical Relations of the Episcopal Church, adopted only this year, states that Anglican failure to ordain women presents an obstacle to union with nonepiscopal churches. It urges the church to make its own decision.

“The Joint Commission on Ecumenical Relations believes that the Episcopal Church must make its decision, as the Lambeth Conference of 1968 anticipated, acting as a province of the Anglican communion and on the basis of a widely shared conviction about the meaning and significance of Scripture, tradition and theological reflection."(20)

Perhaps the most sensitive and realistic approach to ecumenical considerations is found in the United States House of Bishops report of 1972:

We have already commented on the increasing number of churches in which all ministerial orders are open to women. Yet these churches together do not number nearly as many Christians as those in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches; and it would be reckless to imagine any swift change in Roman Catholic discipline and probably even more so from Orthodoxy. The recent statement by the Pope on the subject of women's place in the formal ministries of the Church is a chilling warning, at best, in this regard. Yet it remains true that there is an increasing restlessness on the subject in most responsible circles and it is not likely that a papal regulation motu proprie will put an end to it. The Roman Church, in these times, is very far from providing the monolithic, certain guidance one once could take for granted.(21)

It is clear that the Anglican Church is in a stage of reevaluation if not transition in its understanding of the role of women in the ordained and unordained ministry. It is too early to predict the final outcome.

Notes

1. The Lambeth Conferences (1867-1930), (London: S.P.C.K., 1948), page 95.

2. Ibid, p. 97.

3. Ibid, p. 95

4. "Report of the Special Committee of the U.S. House of Bishops on the Ordination of Women," October, 1972, page 2.

5. Ibid, p. 2.

6. Ibid, p. 2.

7. The Ministry of Women, report of the Archbishops' Commission, 1935 Church Assembly Press and Publications Board, 1935.

8. Lambeth Conference Report, 1948, p. 120.

9. Woman and Holy Orders, Church Information Office, London, December 1966, page 8.

10. Resolutions:

(34) The Conference affirms its opinion that the theological arguments as at present presented for and against the ordination of women to the priesthood are inconclusive.

(35) The Conference requests every national and regional Church or province to give careful study to the question of the ordination of women to the priesthood and to report its findings to the Anglican Consultative Council (or Lambeth Consultative Body)

(a) to initiate consultations with other churches which have women in their ordained ministry and with those which have not;

(b) to distribute the information thus secured throughout the Anglican Communion.

(37) The Conference recommends that before any national or regional church or province makes a final decision to ordain women to the priesthood, the advice of the Anglican Consultative Council (or Lambeth Consultative Body) be sought and carefully considered.

(38) The Conference recommends that, in the meantime, national or regional churches or provinces should be encouraged to make canonical provision, where this does not exist, for duly qualified women to share in the conduct of liturgical worship, to preach, to baptise, to read the epistle and gospel at the Holy Communion and to help in the distribution of the elements."

The Lambeth Conference 1968, Resolutions and Reports, (Seabury Press: New York: 1968), pp. 39-41.

11. "Renewal in Ministry"

WOMEN AND THE PRIESTHOOD

As society, and the place of women in it, change rapidly all over the world, it is right that a report on the renewal of the Church's ministry should include a reconsideration of whether women should be ordained to the priesthood.

THEOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS

We find no conclusive theological reasons for withholding ordination to the priesthood from women as such. We think it worthwhile to make the following points:

The appeal to Scripture and tradition deserves to be taken with the utmost seriousness. To disregard what we have received from the apostles, and the inheritance of catholic Christendom, would be most inappropriate for a Church for which the authority of Scripture and tradition stands high.

Nevertheless the data of scripture appear divided on this issue. St. Paul's insistence on female subordination made to enforce good order in the anarchy at Corinth is balanced by his declaration in Galatians 3:28 that in the one Christ there is no distinction of Jew against Gentile, slave against free man, male against female.

It appears that the tradition flowing from the early fathers and the medieval church that a woman is incapable of receiving Holy Orders reflects biological assumptions about the nature of woman and her relation to man which are considered unacceptable in the light of modern knowledge and biblical study and have been generally discarded today.

Ibid, p.106.

12. Resolution 28—the Ordination of Women to the Priesthood

(a) Many of the Churches of the Anglican Communion regard the question of the ordination of women to the priesthood as an urgent matter. We therefore call on all Churches of the Anglican Communion to give their consideration to this subject as requested by LCR 35, and to express their views in time for consideration by the Anglican Consultative Council in 1973.

(b) In reply to the request of the Council of the Church of South-East Asia, this Council advises the Bishop of Hong Kong acting with the approval of his Synod, and any other bishop of the Anglican Communion acting with the approval of his Province, that, if he decides to ordain women to the priesthood his action will be acceptable to this council; and that this council will use its good offices to encourage all Provinces of the Anglican Communion to continue in communion with these dioceses. [Carried by 24 votes to 22]

(c) In the terms of LCR 36, the Secretary General is asked to request the metropolitans and primates of the Churches of the Anglican Communion to consult with other Churches in their area in the matter of ordination of women and to report to him in time for the next meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council."

The Time is Now, Anglican Consultative Council, First Meeting Limuru, Kenya, London S.P.C.K., 1971, pp. 34-35.

13.Ibid, page 35.

14.Partners in Mission, Anglican Consultative Council, Second Meeting Dublin, 1973. London S.P.C.K., 1973, p. 38.

15. Statements:

(i) The Council agrees to recommend once more that, where any autonomous Province of the Anglican Communion decides to ordain women to the priesthood, this should not cause any break in communion in our Anglican family.

[Carried in favor 50, against 2, abstentions 3]

Ibid, p. 41.

16. Resolutions from General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada meeting at Quebec City, June 12 to 19, 1975.

That this General Synod reaffirm the principle of the Ordination of Women to the priesthood.

MOVED by Miss Ruth Scott,
SECONDED by Bishop David Somerville

For		Against
88	laity	18
75	clergy	30
26	bishops	8
_____		_____
189		56

THAT this General Synod further affirm that it would be appropriate for women qualified for the priesthood to be Ordained at the discretion of diocesan bishops acting with the normal procedures of their own jurisdictions and in consultation with the House of Bishops.

MOVED by Miss Ruth Scott
SECONDED by Bishop David Somerville

For		Against
95	laity	9
86	clergy	19
27	bishops	7
_____		_____
208		35

17. Statements:

(ii) The Council recognizes that any firm decision on the ordination of women to the priesthood will have important ecumenical repercussions, which need to be taken into account; but this consideration should not be decisive. The Churches of the Anglican Commission must make their own decision."

[Carried in favor 54, against 1, abstentions, nil]

(iii) The Churches, provinces and extra-provincial dioceses which have not yet responded to the Secretary General in terms of Limuru Resolutions 28 (a) and (c) are again urged to do so, in order that a wider consensus of opinion may be obtained for further deliberation at ACC in Perth in 1975."

[Carried in favor 54, against 1, abstentions, nil]

Ibid, p. 41.

18. Orthodox Statement on the Ordination of Women from the Anglican-Orthodox Consultation, June 2, 1973. See appendix.

19. The Ordination of Women to the Priesthood, (London, A.C.C.U.), 1972, p.68.

20. The Ecumenical Impact of the Proposed Ordination of Women," A Statement by the Joint Commission on Ecumenical Relations of the Episcopal Church, adopted, January 30, 1975. See appendix.

21. Report of Special Committee of the United States House of Bishops, on the Ordination of Women, October, 1972, p. 20.

Biography

Hugh B. McCullum has had an extensive career in journalism in Canada, serving on five papers—the Montreal Herald, The Kingston Whig-Herald, The Regina Leader-Post, Qu'Appelle Crusader and the Toronto Telegram—before joining The Canadian Churchman in 1964. He was editor and general manager of that publication from 1968 to 1975. A native of Toronto, his articles have been published in TIME magazine, the London Church Times, LIBERTY magazine in Toronto and numerous other journals both religous and secular.

Mr. McCullum studied at Sir George Williams University in Montreal and McGill University from 1954 to 1955 and attended the University of Western Ontario in 1956. In 1963 he studied at the American Press Institute of Columbia University in New York. In 1972 he was awarded the Southern Fellowship for Journalists at the University of Toronto and attended its School of International Studies.

From 1974 to 1975, Mr. McCullum was an adjunct professor of journalism at the graduate school of the University of Western Ontario.

His experiences in religious journalism have included coverage of the World Congress on Evangelism in Berlin (1966), the Lambeth Conference (1968), and the World Council of Churches General Convention in Uppsala, Sweden (1968). He has also covered both sessions of the Anglican Consultative Council at Limuru, Kenya, in 1971 and Dublin, Ireland, in 1973.

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