The ordination of women in the Anglican Communion has been increasingly common in certain provinces since the 1970s. Several provinces, however, and certain dioceses within otherwise ordaining provinces, continue to ordain only men. Disputes over the ordination of women have contributed to the establishment and growth of conservative seccession movements, such as the Anglican realignment and Continuing Anglican movements.

Some provinces within the Anglican Communion ordain women to the three traditional holy orders of deacon, priest and bishop. Other provinces ordain women as deacons and priests but not as bishops; others as deacons only.

Within provinces that permit the ordination of women, approval of enabling legislation is largely a diocesan responsibility. There may, however, be individual dioceses that do not endorse the legislation or do so only in a modified form, as in those dioceses which ordain women only to the diaconate (such as the Diocese of Sydney in the Anglican Church of Australia), regardless of whether or not the ordination of women to all three orders of ministry is canonically possible. The Anglican Church of Australia General Synod legislated that women could be ordained as deacons (1985) and priests (1992) and the Appellate Tribunal agreed to bishops (2007)Anglican Church of Australia, Report of the Appellate Tribunal: Reference on women bishops, 26 September 2007 but left the decision to ordain women to those orders to individual dioceses.Peter Sherlock (2008) ‘Leave it to the Women’ The Exclusion of Women from Anglican Church Government in Australia, Australian Historical Studies, 39:3, 288-304, DOI: 10.1080/10314610802263299

Overview

The current situation regarding women's ordination in the Anglican Communion can be seen in the following table, which lists 42 member churches (provinces) and the 5 extra-provincial churches: Province Ordination of female deacons permitted First female deacon Ordination of female priests permitted First female priest Consecration of female bishops permitted First female bishop Alexandria Australia Bangladesh Brazil Burundi Canada Central Africa Central America Chile Congo England https://www.churchofengland.org/media/1121182/a8(we)background.pdf p. 1 Hong Kong Indian Ocean Ireland Japan Jerusalem and the Middle East Kenya Korea Melanesia Mexico Myanmar (Burma) Mozambique and Angola New Zealand and Polynesia - Nigeria North India Pakistan Papua New Guinea Philippines Rwanda Scotland Southern Africa South America South East Asia South India South Sudan "First woman bishop for GAFCON province" , Anglican Ink website. Sudan Tanzania Uganda United States Wales West Africa West Indies Bermuda (extra-provincial) Ceylon (Sri Lanka; extra-provincial) Falkland Islands (extra-provincial) Portugal (extra-provincial) Spain (extra-provincial)

Note that provinces are categorised above according to the overall provincial policy on the ordination of women. In provinces where individual dioceses have considerable autonomy (e.g. the Anglican Church of Australia), some dioceses may be less permissive than the province overall.

Ordination of priests

Hong Kong and Macao

The first woman ordained to the priesthood in the Anglican Communion was Florence Li Tim-Oi, who was ordained on 25 January 1944 by Ronald Hall, Bishop of Victoria, Hong Kong, in response to the crisis among Anglican Christians in China caused by the Japanese invasion. To avoid controversy, she resigned her licence (though not her priestly orders) after the end of the war.

In 1971, the Synod of Hong Kong and Macao became the first Anglican province to officially permit the ordination of women to the priesthood. Jane Hwang and Joyce M. Bennett were ordained as priests by Gilbert Baker, Bishop of Hong Kong and Macao on 28 November 1971. At the same time, Li Tim-Oi was officially recognised again as a priest."When Hong Kong ordained two further women priests in 1971 (Joyce Bennett and Jane Hwang), Florence Li Tim-Oi was officially recognised as a priest by the diocese" http://anorderlyaccount.com/index.php/static2/the_ac_tec_and_acna

United States

In 1974, in the United States, 11 women (known as the "Philadelphia Eleven") were controversially ordained to the priesthood in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, by three retired Episcopal Church bishops (Daniel Corrigan, Robert L. DeWitt and Edward R. Welles II). Four more women (the "Washington Four") were ordained in 1975 in Washington D.C. by George W. Barrett, retired Bishop of Rochester, New York. All of these ordinations were ruled "irregular" because they had been done without the authorisation of the Episcopal Church's General Convention. The ordinations were regularised in 1976 following the approval by the General Convention of measures to provide for the ordination of women to the priesthood and the episcopate. The first regular ordination occurred on 1 January 1977, when Jacqueline Means was ordained at the Episcopal Church of All Saints, Indianapolis."Woman Episcopal Priest Celebrates Communion", New York Times, 3 January 1977.

Canada

In 1975, the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada (ACC) passed enabling legislation for women priests; the first six women priests in the ACC were ordained on 30 November 1976.

New Zealand

In 1977, the Anglican Church in New Zealand ordained five female priests.

Kenya

In 1980, the Anglican Church of Kenya agreed in principle that women could be ordained and that each diocese was to be autonomous in taking up the issue. In 1983, Henry Okullu, bishop of the Diocese of Maseno South in the Anglican Church of Kenya, ordained Lucia Okuthe as a priest. In the same year, William Rukirande, Bishop of Kigezi in the Church of Uganda, ordained three women as priests, Monica Sebidega, Deborah Micungwa Rukara, and Margaret Kizanye Byekwaso. Formal legislation for the ordination of women as priests was ultimately approved in both provinces in 1990.

Ireland

In 1990, Janet Catterall became the first woman ordained an Anglican priest in Ireland.

Australia

In 1992, the general synod of the Anglican Church of Australia approved legislation allowing dioceses to decide whether to ordain women to the priesthood. In the same year, 90 women were ordained in Australia and three others who had been ordained overseas were recognised.Anglican Media. & Angela Grutzner & Associates. 1995, The Australian Anglican directory

While the ordination of women to the diaconate and priesthood had been raised in Australia in the 1960s and earlier; during the 1980s and 1990s there was significant ongoing debate in the Anglican Church of Australia about the ordination of women, especially to the priesthood, with bills put to the General Synod to enable ordination. The debate and arguments for and against were reported in the mainstream media as well as in church newspapers. Individual bishops, dioceses, clergy and churches spoke and wrote publicly about their support or rejection of female deacons and priests.Melbourne Anglican Media, SEE, 1990-1993 Advocacy organisations formed for and against the proposal to ordain women including (for) Anglican Women Concerned, Action Group for Women's Ordination, the Movement for the Ordination of Women, Men, Women and God: Christians for Biblical Equality, Women and Holy Orders? in Adelaide and (against) Women Against the Ordination of Women, Association for Apostolic Ministry, Equal but Different, the Union of Anglican Catholic Priests, South Australia and the Campaign for the Historic Anglican Male Priesthood in Brisbane.

By 2025 only two (Sydney and North-West Australia) of the 23 dioceses have never ordained women as priests. A third diocese (Armidale) has ordained two women as priests but limited their service to the Anglican girls school and does not ordain women as priests for its churches.

South Africa

Also in 1992, the Anglican Church of Southern Africa authorised the ordination of women as priests and, in September that year, Nancy Charton, Bride Dickson and Sue Groves were ordained in the Diocese of Grahamstown.

England

Also in 1992, the General Synod of the Church of England passed a vote to ordain women as priests; however, it proved controversial. The Act of Synod, passed in 1993, along with further legislation, allowed parishes to not accept ordained women. In 1994 England's first thirty-two women were ordained as priests. The experience of the first women priests and their congregations was the premise of the television programme The Vicar of Dibley. The legality of the ordination of women in the Church of England was challenged in civil courts by Paul Williamson and others. By 2004, one in five Church of England priests were women.

Barbados/West Indies

In 1994, in the Diocese of Barbados, Sonia Hinds and Beverley Sealy became the first women to be ordained as deacons in the Church in the Province of the West Indies on 25 July, the Feast of St James. On 31 May 1996, on the Feast of the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth, both women were ordained as priests. Rufus Brome, the first Barbadian-born bishop, presided at both ordinations at the Cathedral of St Michael and All Angels in Bridgetown, Barbados.

Philippines

In 1997, Rosalina Villaruel Rabaria became the first woman ordained in the Philippines Independent Church, in the Diocese of Aklan and Capiz on 9 February.

South America

In 2015, Bolivia became the first diocese in the Anglican Province of South America (formerly known as the Southern Cone) to ordain women as priests.

Also in 2015, Susana Lopez Lerena, Cynthia Myers Dickin, and Audrey Taylor Gonzalez became the first women Anglican priests ordained in the Diocese of Uruguay.

Ordination of bishops

Episcopal Church in the United States

The first woman to become a bishop in the Anglican Communion was Barbara Harris, who was ordained suffragan bishop of Massachusetts in the United States in February 1989. As of August 2017, 24 women have since been elected to the episcopate across the church. The election in December 2009 and consecration on 15 May 2010 of Mary Glasspool, who is openly gay and lives with her partner of 20 years, as a suffragan bishop in the Diocese of Los Angeles attracted attention owing to the continued controversy over gay bishops in Anglicanism.Episcopal Life Online , 15 May 2010.

The Episcopal Church in the United States also elected the first woman to become a primate (or senior bishop of a national church), Katharine Jefferts Schori, who was elected as 26th Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church at the 2006 General Convention for a nine-year term (2006-2015).

Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand, and Polynesia

The Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia first ordained women as priests in 1977 and was the first Anglican province to elect a woman as a diocesan bishop when, in 1989, Penny Jamieson was elected Bishop of Dunedin. She retired in 2004. In 2008 the Diocese of Christchurch elected Victoria Matthews, former Bishop of Edmonton in the Anglican Church of Canada, as 8th Bishop of Christchurch. In 2013, Helen-Ann Hartley became the first woman ordained in the Church of England to become a bishop when she was elected as Bishop of Waikato and joint diocesan bishop in the Diocese of Waikato and Taranaki. From 2017 to 2022, the Rt Rev Dr Eleanor Sanderson had served as Assistant Bishop of Wellington. Wai Quayle became the first indigenous woman to be elected a bishop in the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia in 2019.

Anglican Church of Canada