Celebrating 50 years of women in the Episcopal priesthood

By The Rev'd Mia C. McDowell, canon catechist

July 29, 1974. Church of the Advocate, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I was five years old when the first woman was ordained a priest in The Episcopal Church. There was no way I could ever imagine how my own life would be affected by this historic event. 

This year is the 50th anniversary of the Philadelphia 11 – the 11 women who were ordained two years before The Episcopal Church voted at General Convention to allow it. They had all, in different times and in different ways, heard the call of God upon their lives to serve his church. They asked and knocked, and asked and knocked over several decades of General Conventions, hoping to be ordained and asking to be allowed to fully express this call to the order of priest. They prayed with their feet. 

That must have been a powerful summer for them. I’m sure joy was part of their experience, but they also may have felt afraid—as I felt afraid as I wondered whether the church would be open to receive their ministry because they were women. 

Two years after the ordination of the Philadelphia 11, there was a lot of uncertainty whether The Episcopal Church would fully validate the ordination of these women at the 1976 General Convention. The church is, after all, made up of human beings who can be stubborn, can be blindsided by tradition, and can be blindsided by their own particular interpretation of scripture. But yet these humans—these women and the bishops who ordained them—had courage. They had faith. They believed they had a true call from God. 

What was new to us in 1976 was not really new in scripture. We see several women serving in the Old Testament—Miriam and Hanna and Sara, and all of the matriarchs who contributed to the story of God. We read in the New Testament, in Paul’s letter to the Romans (16:1-16), male and female listed by name, together doing the work of spreading the Gospel. I am very sure that these women named here were doing more than serving cookies and lemonade in the house churches where early Christians gathered to celebrate the Lord’s day. We know that many women in biblical times, especially in Rome, were wealthy patrons of Paul and Peter, who hosted these churches in their homes.  

Fast forward to the year 2010. I myself now have been an Episcopalian for about six years, and had a career as a pharmacy technician.  I also served as an organist and choirmaster for various churches in the Upstate.

My own sense of call to ordained ministry was surrounded by secrecy, uncertainty, and starts and stops. Who would ever believe that a black girl from Nicholtown in Greenville, South Carolina, with Church of Christ grandparents, would ever be accepted as an Episcopal priest? Yet, God has brought me to serve in His church! 

I earned a Masters of Divinity from The School of Theology at The University of the South, Sewanee, in 2015, and was ordained to the priesthood in January 2016. I found myself the beneficiary of the courage and the nerve and the strength of those women who put themselves up for ordination, and the bishops who took the steps to ordain them. 

This year we celebrate with the Philadelphia 11 and the Church of the Advocate in Philadelphia who sponsored the ordinations. We celebrate 50 years of women being allowed to be priests in The Episcopal Church in the United States. Some of these original 11 are still with us. Along with our Philadelphia 11 sister priests, we also celebrate the women who have served as priests here at Trinity Cathedral. It is my distinct honor to be number seven in this great group of women who have served this wonderful and glorious cathedral through our gifts of ministry. I am also proud to be the first priest who is an African-American woman called by Trinity. 

On July 31, we will offer a free screening of “The Philadelphia Eleven,” a documentary by director Margo Guernsey. We show this film to honor them and the countless others who have come after them and have built upon the foundation that they laid. 

During the cocktail hour before the film, you will see photos of Bishop Barbara Clementine Harris, the first African-American bishop in the United States; the Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray, the first African-American woman priest ordained in the United States; and the Rev. Rev. Florence Li Tim Oi, the first woman ordained in the Anglican Communion, of which The Episcopal Church is part. 

These women were deeply, deeply confident that scripture would support them and their vocation to the priesthood. Through the showing of this film and conversations that will follow, may we always remember and honor and celebrate those who had the courage and faith to stand for what they believe was right in this world and in this church called The Episcopal Church. 

God bless you and God bless the Philadelphia 11. May we always make sure the doors of the church are open for all who are called by God into the ministry of serving his people in the world and beyond.