This week in Christian history: ‘The Philadelphia Eleven,’ inquisitor murdered

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Sunday, July 28, 2024

The ‘Philadelphia Eleven’ ordained – July 29, 1974

Theologian Carter Heyward, one of the 'Philadelphia Eleven,' a group of 11 who were the first women to be ordained as priests in The Episcopal Church in 1974, being interviewed in 2020. — Theologian Carter Heyward, one of the "Philadelphia Eleven," a group of 11 who were the first women to be ordained as priests in The Episcopal Church in 1974, being interviewed in 2020. | Screengrab: YouTube/DukeChapel

This week marks the anniversary of when 11 women were ordained at an Episcopal church in Pennsylvania, even though the denomination had not yet approved of female ordination.

Known as the Philadelphia Eleven, the women were ordained priests at the Church of the Advocate in Philadelphia, with bishops Daniel Corrigan, Robert DeWitt, and Edward Welles II presiding over the ceremony.

“These ordinations, and the ordinations of four more women in September 1975 in Washington, D.C., were widely criticized as irregular because the Episcopal Church had not yet authorized the ordination of women to the priesthood,” explained The Episcopal Church.

“In 1976 the House of Bishops affirmed the validity of the ordinations by requiring of the fifteen women only ‘an act of completion’ that would be ‘a liturgical incorporation of what was done on those two occasions’ in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.”

In 2024, the mainline Protestant denomination commemorated the 50th anniversary of the ordination, with many dioceses holding special viewings of a documentary celebrating the event.