A momentous vote was about to be taken by the General Convention of the Episcopal Church. President John B. Coburn of New York called the packed House of Deputies to order, nearly 800 deputies, with hundreds of on-lookers crowding the gallery.
     A resolution, already adopted by the House of Bishops, was introduced. In the time allotted for debate, twenty-nine deputies spoke in favor, and twenty-nine spoke against. The Chair of the Committee on Ministry called for five minutes of silent prayer. The vote was taken. Everyone held their breath, and then it was official: women could be ordained to all three orders in the Episcopal Church.
    "All around us people were weeping, silently reaching, touching each other. No one spoke," remembered the Rev. Alla Bozarth Campbell, one of the 1974 "Philadelphia 11" whose ordinations would now be regularized (Bozarth, Womanpriest: a Personal Odyssey, Luramedia, 1988 p 115).
    Immediately after the vote was announced, representatives of groups opposed to the ordination of women were recognized, to read into the record an impassioned statement of dissent. The canon had been changed, but much work lay ahead to implement it.

    How did the Episcopal Church come to this far-reaching decision? And why did some weep with joy while others protested so vigorously?
    For centuries, women were excluded from governance and spiritual leadership in the Episcopal Church. Even after the secular suffrage movement raised consciousness about women's issues, beginning in the 19th century, it took many decades for the church to include women as lay members of the House of Deputies. Efforts began early in the 20th century, but women were not seated in the General Convention until 1970. It took more than a century for deaconesses to become deacons. By contrast, the struggle to open the priesthood and the episcopate to women was brief. But it was very intense.

Deaconess or Deacon?
    The women's ordination movement in the Episcopal Church can be traced back to the 1850's, when women were first set apart as deaconesses in several dioceses. However, deaconesses were not recognized as "in holy orders" for more than a hundred years, until 1970 - at the General Convention at which women first served as deputies. The transformation of deaconesses into deacons was the result of decades of conversation, studies, reports, declarations, and a little "street theater."
    In 1964, recommendations from a 1934 (!) minority report on deaconesses were put into effect, the most striking of which was a change of terminology, from "set apart" to "ordered." Phyllis Edwards had been set apart by Bishop Pike, the controversial Bishop of California. The language change led Edwards and Pike to reason that "set apart" deaconesses were now part of the diaconate.
    In early 1965, Pike announced his intention to vest Edwards as a deacon in his diocese. So great was the initial outcry that Pike agreed to delay the service until after the House of Bishops' meeting in early September. There, addressing questions raised by the Deaconess Edwards affair, the bishops decided deaconesses were "ordered" and received an "indelible character" but they were not to distribute bread or wine at the Eucharist. So was she or wasn't she a deacon?
    The bishops approved a liturgy for "making deaconesses, similar to the prayer book service for "making deacons." The next week, Pike used parts of that service to invest Phyllis Edwards with the traditional deacon's stole and copy of the Gospels. With considerable fanfare, she was added to the diocesan clergy records - to the dismay of many who feared this was the female camel's nose in the tent of the male-only ordained ministry.

Study, Study, Study = Delay, Delay, Delay
    That was 1965. In 1966 a "Committee to Study the Proper Place of Women in the Ministry of the Church" made a progress report. Citing factors that "give the question a new urgency," the report recommended that Lambeth consider the ministry of women, again.
     The 1967 Convention gave first approval to allowing women to serve as Deputies, but a resolution calling for a Joint Commission to study the "role of women in the church" was defeated in the House of Deputies.
In 1968 the Lambeth Conference of Bishops from the entire Anglican Communion adopted a (non-binding) resolution that those made deaconesses with laying on of hands were "declared to be in the diaconate," but Lambeth said nothing about other orders.
    The 1969 Special General Convention appointed yet another study committee. After prodding from women, it produced a report for the 1970 Convention, where a resolution endorsing the ordination of women to all three orders was introduced, but narrowly defeated.

No More Study!
   In late 1971, women deacons, seminarians and supporters gathered for a conference on ordination, and sent a sharply worded letter to the Presiding Bishop protesting the planned appointment of still another study committee. Then they formed the Episcopal Women's Caucus, an avowedly-political group dedicated to promoting women's ministries.
    When the 1973 Convention met in Houston, many assumed that, since the women's ordination resolution had so nearly passed last time, it would be adopted this time. But the opposition had organized, and the measure was resoundingly defeated. Devastated, supporters were also galvanized into more aggressive action.

Provacateurs
    Street theater that made the Edwards/Pike affair look tame began in December when five women deacons were presented alongside male colleagues for ordination to the priesthood in the Diocese of New York. Bishop Moore declined; the women and their supporters walked out, and the New York Times the next morning moved the issue into the secular arena.
    Similar protests took place in Minneapolis and elsewhere, and sentiment grew for women to be ordained priest even before Convention acted. On July 29, 1974, in Philadelphia, eleven women deacons were ordained priest by three retired or resigned bishops.
    The fall-out was intense. Even those in favor of ordaining women disagreed on the appropriateness of acting before Convention. A three-pronged strategy emerged to prepare for Convention. Some focused on education. Others concentrated on political organizing. The "Philadelphia 11" and supporters continued to be highly visible, and sometimes provocative, so the church could not forget that women priests were no longer a theoretical issue but a living reality. Four more women were ordained in Washington DC in 1975.

The Road to Minneapolis
   Pro- and anti- groups proliferated in the final months prior to the 1976 Convention in Minneapolis. The issue was debated, often hotly, in many diocesan conventions. The intensity ratcheted up because the final stage of prayer book revision was underway at the same time. As controversial as ordaining women, the 1979 Book of Common Prayer was to be presented in Minneapolis.
   The day came, September 16, 1976. In an intensely charged atmosphere, the House of Deputies adopted a resolution already approved by the House of Bishops, calling for a new section in the church's canon law:
   The provisions of these canons for the admission of Candidates, and for the Ordination to the three Orders, Bishops, Priests and Deacons, shall be equally applicable to men and women.

Texts for our Worship
    Four days later, a revised prayer book came before the Bishops. There had been trial liturgies, green books, "zebra" books, and feedback sessions during the fifteen year revision process. At last, Convention gave "first approval" to a new prayer book.
    People are often puzzled that the book approved in 1976 is called "The 1979 Book of Common Prayer." Canons such as that about ordination can be changed by one Convention, but changing the prayer book requires approval at two consecutive Conventions. The 1976 vote was the first approval for the "Proposed Book," which became final when approved again in 1979. (It could be printed and used right away, however, and many churches still have prayer books with "Proposed" at the top of the title page.)

25 Years Bring Big Changes
    In the aftermath of Minneapolis, some disappointed Episcopalians formed a breakaway church, while others vowed to fight from within. That conflict continues, with sexuality added to the mix, and more schismatic groups in the making.
    For most, the changes made in Minneapolis, novel and threatening then, are taken for granted 25 years later. Some still call the 1979 book "the new prayer book;" but an entire generation knows nothing else. Children in most dioceses scoff at the idea that women can't be priests.
    Of the approximately 14,000 priests and deacons in the Episcopal Church, active and retired, well over 3,000 are women, and nine women are bishops. Thousands more serve in other provinces of the Anglican Communion, including one bishop in New Zealand and two in Canada.
    Few conventions have had such a sweeping impact on the life of the church. In Minneapolis, Episcopalians worked and prayed and voted, so today we can give thanks for 25 years of expanded worship resources and the ministries of thousands of regularly ordained women.
    "I can go through a whole year now with nobody having a problem that I'm a priest," commented the Rev. Carol Chamberlain of Philadelphia, one of dozens of women ordained to the priesthood in January 1977.
    "I'm proud of our church. We've come a long way. We've led the way. Wonderful ministry is being done around the country by ordained women and men working together."

Thanks be to God.