1995

Return to Home

illustration - Bishop Barbara Harris, first woman to serve as Bishop in the Episcopal Charch and in the Anglican Communion
Photo Courtesy of the Episcopal Church

Background:

The U.S. has just concluded the Gulf War, and elected President Clinton.
Division in the church over ordination of gays and lesbians results in the presentment of the Assistant Bishop of Newark for ordaining a gay man who was in a committed relationship.

National Altar Guild, the United Thank Offering, and other traditional ministries founded by women are open to both men and women.
Women continue their parish ministries and guilds, leading in parish life and Christian education, serving at diocesan conventions and provincial synods, publishing religious materials, teaching in church schools and Sunday Schools, serving as organists and choir directors or members, serving as domestic and foreign missionaries, joining and founding religious orders.
Women are full-time faculty members at all of the Seminaries of the Church.
Three women have been consecrated as bishops in the Episcopal Church and three more are elected in 1995; the churches in Canada and New Zealand have also consecrated women bishops.
A woman has served as President of the House of Deputies.
There is a woman as Treasurer of the Episcopal Church*

*Ellen Cooke, Treasurer, was charged with embezzlement, demonstrating that church women can have great failings as well as strengths.
This web page is maintained by Webster Joan R. Gundersen
for the Episcopal Women's History Project.