Ordination of Women - Some Significant Dates and Events

Some Significant Dates and Events

A list with dates of important events in the history of women's ordination appears below:

• 6th century BCE Mahapajapati Gotami, the aunt and foster mother of Buddha, was the first woman to receive Buddhist ordination.
• 13th century The first female Zen master, as well as the first Zen abbess, was the Japanese abbess Mugai Nyodai (born 1223 - died 1298).
• 17th century: Asenath Barzani led and taught at a yeshiva in Iraq.
• Circa 1770: Mary Evans Thorne was appointed class leader by Joseph Pilmore in Philadelphia, probably the first woman in America to be so appointed.
• Late 18th century: John Wesley allowed women to preach within his Methodist movement.
• Early 19th century: A fundamental belief of the Society of Friends (Quakers) has always been the existence of an element of God's spirit in every human soul. Thus all persons are considered to have inherent and equal worth, independent of their gender, and this led to an acceptance of female ministers. In 1660, Margaret Fell (1614–1702) published a famous pamphlet to justify equal roles for men and women in the denomination, titled: "Women's Speaking Justified, Proved and Allowed of by the Scriptures, All Such as Speak by the Spirit and Power of the Lord Jesus And How Women Were the First That Preached the Tidings of the Resurrection of Jesus, and Were Sent by Christ's Own Command Before He Ascended to the Father (John 20:17)." In the United States, in contrast with almost every other organized denomination, the Society of Friends (Quakers) has allowed women to serve as ministers since the early 19th century. Furthermore, in England in the 17th century Elizabeth Hooton became the first female Quaker minister.
• 19th century: Women's mosques, called nusi, and female imams have existed since the 19th century in China and continue today.
• 19th century: Hannah Rachel Verbermacher, also known as the Maiden of Ludmir (Ludmirer Moyd), became the only female Rebbe in the history of the Hasidic movement; she lived in Ukraine and Israel.
• 1807: The Primitive Methodist Church in Britain first allowed female ministers.
• 1815: Clarissa Danforth was ordained in New England. She was the first woman ordained by the Free Will Baptist denomination.
• 1815: The first petition for the African Methodist Episcopal Church General Conference to license women to preach is defeated.
• 1853: Antoinette Brown Blackwell was the first woman ordained as a minister in the United States. She was ordained by a church belonging to the Congregationalist Church. However, her ordination was not recognized by the denomination. She later quit the church and became a Unitarian. The Congregationalists later merged with others to create the United Church of Christ, which ordains women.
• 1861: Mary A. Will was the first woman ordained in the Wesleyan Methodist Connection by the Illinois Conference in the United States. The Wesleyan Methodist Connection eventually became the Wesleyan Church.
• 1863: Olympia Brown was ordained by the Universalist denomination in 1863, the first woman ordained by that denomination, in spite of a last-moment case of cold feet by her seminary which feared adverse publicity. After a decade and a half of service as a full-time minister, she became a part-time minister in order to devote more time to the fight for women's rights and universal suffrage. In 1961, the Universalists and Unitarians joined to form the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA). The UUA became the first large denomination to have a majority of female ministers.
• 1865: The Salvation Army was founded, which in the English Methodist tradition always ordained both men and women. However, there were initially rules that prohibited a woman from marrying a man who had a lower rank.
• 1866: Helenor M. Davison was ordained as a deacon by the North Indiana Conference of the Methodist Protestant Church, probably making her the first ordained woman in the Methodist tradition.
• 1869: Margaret Newton Van Cott became the first woman in the Methodist Episcopal Church to receive a local preacher's license.
• 1869: Lydia Sexton (of the United Brethren Church) was appointed chaplain of the Kansas State Prison at the age of 70, the first woman in the United States to hold such a position.
• 1871: Celia Burleigh became the first female Unitarian minister.
• 1876: Anna Oliver was the first woman to receive a Bachelor of Divinity degree from an American seminary (Boston University School of Theology).
• 1879: The Church of Christ, Scientist was founded by a woman, Mary Baker Eddy.
• 1880: Anna Howard Shaw was the first woman ordained in the Methodist Protestant Church, an American church which later merged with other denominations to form the United Methodist Church.
• 1886: Louise “Lulu” Fleming becomes the first black woman to be commissioned for career missionary service by the Women’s Baptist Foreign Missionary Society of the West.
• 1888: Sarah E. Gorham becomes the first woman missionary of the African Methodist Episcopal Church appointed to a foreign field.
• 1888: Fidelia Gillette may have been the first ordained woman in Canada. She served the Universalist congregation in Bloomfield, Ontario, during 1888 and 1889. She was presumably ordained in 1888 or earlier.
• 1889: The Nolin Presbytery of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church ordained Louisa Woosley as the first female minister of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, USA.
• 1889: Ella Niswonger was the first woman ordained in the American United Brethren Church, which later merged with other denominations to form the American United Methodist Church, which has ordained women with full clergy rights and conference membership since 1956.
• 1890: On September 14, 1890, Ray Frank gave the Rosh Hashana sermon for a community in Spokane, Washington, thus becoming the first woman to preach from a synagogue pulpit, although she was not a rabbi.
• 1892: Anna Hanscombe is believed to be the first woman ordained by the parent bodies which formed the Church of the Nazarene in 1919.
• 1894: Julia A. J. Foote was the first woman to be ordained as a deacon by the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.
• 1909: The Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee) began ordaining women in 1909.
• 1911: Ann Allebach was the first Mennonite woman to be ordained. This occurred at the First Mennonite Church of Philadelphia.
• 1912: Olive Winchester, born in America, became the first woman ordained by any trinitarian Christian denomination in the United Kingdom when she was ordained by the Church of the Nazarene.
• 1914: The Assemblies of God was founded and ordained its first woman pastors in 1914.
• 1917: The Church of England appointed female "bishop's messengers" to preach, teach, and take missions in the absence of men.
• 1917: The Congregationalist Church (England and Wales) ordained their first woman, Constance Coltman (née Todd), at the King's Weigh House, London. Its successor is the United Reformed Church (a union of the Congregational Church in England and Wales and the Presbyterian Church of England in 1972). Since then two more denominations have joined the union: The Reformed Churches of Christ (1982) and the Congregational Church of Scotland (2000). All of these denominations ordained women at the time of Union and continue to do so. The first woman to be appointed General Secretary of the United Reformed Church was Roberta Rominger in 2008.
• 1920: The Methodist Episcopal Church granted women the right to become licensed as local preachers.
• 1920s: Some Baptist denominations started ordaining women.
• 1922: The Jewish Reform movement's Central Conference of American Rabbis stated that "...woman cannot justly be denied the privilege of ordination." However, the first woman in Reform Judaism to be ordained (Sally Priesand) was not ordained until 1972.
• 1922: The Annual Conference of the Church of the Brethren granted women the right to be licensed into the ministry, but not to be ordained with the same status as men.
• 1924: The Methodist Episcopal Church granted women limited clergy rights as local elders or deacons, without conference membership.
• 1924: Ida B. Robinson founded the Mount Sinai Holy Church of America and became the organization's first presiding bishop and president.
• 1929: Izabela Wiłucka-Kowalska was the first woman to be ordained by the Old Catholic Mariavite Church in Poland.
• 1930: A predecessor church of the Presbyterian Church (USA) ordained its first female as an elder.
• 1935: Regina Jonas was ordained privately by a German rabbi and became the world's first female rabbi.
• 1936: Lydia Emelie Gruchy became the first female minister in the United Church of Canada. In 1953, Reverend Lydia Emelie Grouchy was the first Canadian woman to receive an honorary Doctor of Divinity.
• 1938: Tehilla Lichtenstein became the first Jewish American woman to serve as the spiritual leader of an ongoing Jewish congregation, although she was not ordained.
• 1944: Florence Li Tim Oi became the first woman to be ordained as an Anglican priest. She was born in Hong Kong, and was ordained in Guandong province in unoccupied China on January 25, 1944, on account of a severe shortage of priests due to World War II. When the war ended, she was forced to relinquish her priesthood, yet she was reinstated as a priest later in 1971 in Hong Kong. "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." She later moved to Toronto, Canada, and assisted as a priest there from 1983 onwards.
• 1947: The Lutheran Protestant Church started to ordain women as priests.
• 1947: The Czechoslovak Hussite Church started to ordain women.
• 1948: The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Denmark started to ordain women.
• 1949: The Old Catholic Church (in the U.S.) started to ordain women.
• 1949: Eleanora Figaro became the first black woman to receive the papal honor Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice.
• 1951: From January 1951 until 1953, Paula Ackerman served as Temple Beth Israel’s spiritual leader, conducting services, preaching, teaching, and performing marriages, funerals, and conversions. In so doing, she achieved the distinction of becoming the first woman to assume religious leadership of a mainstream American Jewish congregation, although she was never ordained.
• 1952: Queen Elizabeth II becomes Supreme Governor of the Church of England.
• 1955: In 1955 Betty Robbins, born in Greece, became the world's first female cantor when she was appointed cantor of the Reform congregation of Temple Avodah in Oceanside, New York, in July.
• 1956: Maud K. Jensen was the first woman to receive full clergy rights and conference membership (in her case, in the Central Pennsylvania Conference) in the Methodist Church.
• 1956: The Presbyterian Church (USA) ordained its first female minister, Margaret Towner.
• 1957: In 1957 the Unity Synod of the Moravian Church declared of women's ordination "in principle such ordination is permissible" and that each province is at liberty to "take such steps as seem essential for the maintenance of the ministry of the Word and Sacraments;” however, while this was approved by the Unity Synod in 1957, the Northern Province of the Moravian Church did not approve women for ordination until 1970 at the Provincial Synod, and it was not until 1975 that the Rev. Mary Matz became the first female minister within the Moravian Church.
• 1958: Women ministers in the Church of the Brethren were given full ordination with the same status as men.
• 1959: The Reverend Gusta A. Robinette, a missionary, was ordained in the Sumatra (Indonesia) Conference soon after The Methodist Church granted full clergy rights to women in 1956. She was appointed District Superintendent of the Medan Chinese District in Indonesia becoming the first female district superintendent in the Methodist Church.
• 1960: The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Sweden started ordaining women.
• 1964: Addie Davis became the first Southern Baptist woman to be ordained. However, the Southern Baptist Convention stopped ordaining women in 2000, although existing female pastors are allowed to continue their jobs.
• 1967: The Presbyterian Church in Canada started ordaining women.
• 1967: Margaret Henrichsen became the first American female district superintendent in the Methodist Church.
• 1970: The Northern Province of the Moravian Church approved women for ordination in 1970 at the Provincial Synod, but it was not until 1975 that the Rev. Mary Matz became the first female minister within the Moravian Church.
• 1970: In 1970 Ludmila Javorova attempted ordination as a Catholic priest in Czechoslovakia by a friend of her family, Bishop Felix Davidek (1921–88), himself clandestinely consecrated, due to the shortage of priests caused by communist persecution; however, an official Vatican statement in February 2000 declared the ordinations invalid while recognizing the severe circumstances under which they occurred.
• 1970: On November 22, 1970, Elizabeth Alvina Platz became the first woman ordained by the Lutheran Church in America, and as such was the first woman ordained by any Lutheran denomination in America. The first woman ordained by the American Lutheran Church, Barbara Andrews, was ordained in December 1970. On January 1, 1988 the Lutheran Church in America, the American Lutheran Church, and the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches merged to form the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which continues to ordain women. (The first woman ordained by the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches, Janith Otte, was ordained in 1977.)
• 1971: Joyce Bennett and Jane Hwang were the first regularly ordained priests in the Anglican Church in Hong Kong.
• 1972: Freda Smith became the first female minister to be ordained by the Metropolitan Community Church.
• 1972: Sally Priesand became the first female rabbi to be ordained in Reform Judaism, and also the first female rabbi in the world to be ordained by any theological seminary.
• 1974: The Methodist Church in the United Kingdom started to ordain women again (after a lapse of ordinations).
• 1974: Sandy Eisenberg Sasso became the first female rabbi to be ordained in Reconstructionist Judaism.
• 1975: Dorothea W. Harvey became the first woman to be ordained by the Swedenborgian Church.
• 1975: Barbara Ostfeld-Horowitz became the first female cantor in Reform Judaism.
• 1975: In 1975, the Rev. Mary Matz became the first female minister in the Moravian Church.
• 1975: Jackie Tabick, born in Dublin, became the first female rabbi ordained in England.
• 1976: The Anglican Church in Canada ordained six female priests.
• 1976: The Rev. Pamela McGee was the first female ordained to the Lutheran ministry in Canada.
• 1976: Venerable Karuna Dharma became the first fully ordained female member of the Buddhist monastic community in the U.S.
• 1977: The Anglican Church in New Zealand ordained five female priests.
• 1977: Pauli Murray became the first African American woman to be ordained as an Episcopal priest in 1977.
• 1977: The first woman ordained by the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches, Janith Otte, was ordained in 1977.
• 1977: On January 1, 1977, Jacqueline Means became the first woman ordained to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church. 11 women were "irregularly" ordained to the priesthood in Philadelphia on July 29, 1974, before church laws were changed to permit women's ordination. They are often called the "Philadelphia 11". Church laws were changed on September 16, 1976.
• 1978: Bonnie Koppell became the first female rabbi to serve in the U.S. military.
• 1978: Linda Rich became the first female cantor to sing in a Conservative synagogue, specifically Temple Beth Zion in Los Angeles, although she was not ordained.
• 1978: Mindy Jacobsen became the first blind woman to be ordained as a cantor in the history of Judaism.
• 1979: The Reformed Church in America started ordaining women as ministers. Women had been admitted to the offices of deacon and elder in 1972.
• 1979:: Beth Israel Congregation of Chester County became the first synagogue in the United States to hire a woman (Linda Joy Holtzman) as senior rabbi.
• 1980: Marjorie Matthews, at the age of 64, was the first woman elected as a bishop in the United Methodist Church.
• 1981: Lynn Gottlieb became the first female rabbi to be ordained in the Jewish Renewal movement.
• 1981: Kinneret Shiryon, born in the United States, became the first female rabbi in Israel.
• 1981: Ani Pema Chodron is an American woman who was ordained as a bhikkhuni (a fully ordained Buddhist nun) in a lineage of Tibetan Buddhism in 1981. Pema Chödrön was the first American woman to be ordained as a Buddhist nun in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition.
• 1981: Karen Soria, born and ordained in the United States, became Australia's first female rabbi.
• 1982: Nyambura J. Njoroge became the first female ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church of East Africa.
• 1983: An Anglican woman was ordained in Kenya.
• 1983: Three Anglican women were ordained in Uganda.
• 1983: Elyse Goldstein, born in the United States and ordained in 1983, became the first female rabbi in Canada.
• 1984: The Community of Christ (known at the time as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) authorized the ordination of women. They are the second largest Latter Day Saint denomination. A schism brought on by this change and others led to the formation of the Restoration Branches movement, the Restoration Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and the Remnant Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints all of which reject female priesthood, although not always the ordination of women in all contexts.
• 1984: Leontine Kelly,the first black woman bishop of a major religious denomination in the United States, is elected head of the United Methodist Church in the San Francisco area.
• 1985: According to the New York Times for 1985-FEB-14: "After years of debate, the worldwide governing body of Conservative Judaism has decided to admit women as rabbis. The group, the Rabbinical Assembly, plans to announce its decision at a news conference...at the Jewish Theological Seminary...". In 1985 Amy Eilberg became the first female rabbi to be ordained in Conservative Judaism.
• 1985: The first women deacons were ordained by the Scottish Episcopal Church.
• 1985: Judy Harrow became the first member of CoG (Covenant of the Goddess, a Wiccan group) to be legally registered as clergy in New York City in 1985, after a five year effort requiring the assistance of the New York Civil Liberties Union.
• 1986: Rabbi Julie Schwartz became the first female Naval chaplain in the U.S.
• 1987: Erica Lippitz and Marla Rosenfeld Barugel became the first female cantors in Conservative Judaism.
• 1987: Joy Levitt became the first female president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association.
• 1988: The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland started to ordain women.
• 1988: Virginia Nagel was ordained as the first Deaf female priest in the Episcopal Church.
• 1988: Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo, an American woman formerly called Catharine Burroughs, became the first Western woman to be named a reincarnate lama.
• 1988: The Episcopal Church elected Barbara Harris as its first female bishop.
• 1989: Einat Ramon, ordained in New York, became the first female native-Israeli rabbi.
• 1990: Pauline Bebe became the first female rabbi in France, although she was ordained in England.
• 1990: Penny Jamieson became the first female Anglican diocesan bishop in the world. She was ordained a bishop of the Anglican Church in New Zealand in June 1990.
• 1990: Anglican women were ordained in Ireland.
• 1990: Sister Cora Billings was installed as a pastor in Richmond, VA, becoming the first black nun to head a parish in the U.S.
• 1992: Naamah Kelman, born in the United States, became the first female rabbi ordained in Israel.
• 1992: In March 1992 the first female priests in Australia were appointed; they were priests of the Anglican Church in Australia.
• 1992: Maria Jepsen became the world's first woman to be elected a Lutheran bishop when she was elected bishop of the North Elbian Evangelical Lutheran Church in Germany, but she resigned in 2010 after allegations that she failed to properly investigate cases of sexual abuse.
• 1992: In November 1992 the General Synod of the Church of England approved the ordination of women as priests.
• 1992: The Anglican Church of South Africa started to ordain women.
• 1992: Rabbi Karen Soria became the first female rabbi to serve in the U.S. Marines, which she did from 1992 until 1996.
• 1993: Rebecca Dubowe became the first Deaf woman to be ordained as a rabbi in the United States.
• 1993: The Communauté Evan­gé­lique Mennonite au Congo (Mennonite Evangelical Community of Congo) voted to ordain women as pastors.
• 1993: Valerie Stessin became the first female Conservative rabbi to be ordained in Israel.
• 1993: Chana Timoner became the first female rabbi to hold an active duty assignment as a chaplain in the U.S. Army.
• 1993: Victoria Matthews was elected as the first female bishop of the Anglican Church of Canada; however she resigned in 2007, stating that “God is now calling me in a different direction”. In 2008, she was ordained as Bishop of Christchurch, becoming the first woman to hold that position.
• 1993: Rosemarie Kohn became the first female bishop to be appointed in the Church of Norway.
• 1993: Maya Leibovich became the first native-born female rabbi in Israel.
• 1994: The first women priests were ordained by the Scottish Episcopal Church.
• 1994: Rabbi Laura Geller became the first woman to lead a major metropolitan congregation, specifically Temple Emanuel in Beverly Hills.
• 1994: Indrani Rampersad was ordained as the first female Hindu priest in Trinidad.
• 1994: On March 12, 1994, the Church of England ordained 32 women as its first female priests.
• 1994: Amina Wadud, born in the United States, became the first woman in South Africa to deliver the jum'ah khutbah, at the Claremont Main Road Mosque in Cape Town.
• 1995: The Sligo Seventh-day Adventist Church in Takoma Park, Maryland, ordained three women in violation of the denomination's rules - Kendra Haloviak, Norma Osborn, and Penny Shell.
• 1995: The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark ordained its first female bishop.
• 1995: Bea Wyler, born in Switzerland, became the second female rabbi in Germany (the first being Regina Jonas),and the first to officiate at a congregation.
• 1995: The Christian Reformed Church voted to allow women ministers, elders and evangelists. In 1998, the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council (NAPARC) suspended the CRC's membership because of this decision.
• 1995: In May 1995, Bola Odeleke was ordained as the first female bishop in Africa. Specifically, she was ordained in Nigeria.
• 1996: Through the efforts of Sakyadhita, an International Buddhist Women Association, ten Sri Lankan women were ordained as bhikkhunis in Sarnath, India.
• 1996: Subhana Barzagi Roshi became the Diamond Sangha's first female roshi (Zen teacher) when she received transmission on March 9, 1996, in Australia. In the ceremony Subhanna also became the first female roshi in the lineage of Robert Aitken Roshi.
• 1997: Rosalina Rabaria became the first female priest in the Philippine Independent Church.
• 1997: Christina Odenberg became the first female bishop in the Church of Sweden.
• 1997: Chava Koster, born in the Netherlands and ordained in the United States, became the first female rabbi from the Netherlands.
• 1998: The General Assembly of the Nippon Sei Ko Kai (Anglican Church in Japan) started to ordain women.
• 1998: The Guatemalan Presbyterian Synod started to ordain women.
• 1998: The Old Catholic Church in the Netherlands started to ordain women.
• 1998: On July 28, 1998, Ava Muhammad became the first female minister in the Nation of Islam, heading Muhammad's Mosque 15 in Atlanta, Ga., one of the largest mosques in the country. In addition to administering day-to-day affairs there she was named Southern Regional Minister, giving her jurisdiction over Nation of Islam mosque activity in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and parts of Tennessee.
• 1998: Some Orthodox Jewish congregations started to employ women as congregational interns, a job created for learned Orthodox Jewish women. Although these interns do not lead worship services, they perform some tasks usually reserved for rabbis, such as preaching, teaching, and consulting on Jewish legal matters. The first woman hired as a congregational intern was Julie Stern Joseph, hired in 1998 by the Lincoln Square Synagogue of the Upper West Side.
• 1998: Nelly Shulman, born in Russia and ordained in England, became the first female rabbi from Russia and the first female rabbi in Belarus, serving as the chief reform rabbi of Minsk, Belarus.
• 1998: Sherry Chayat, born in Brooklyn, became the first American woman to receive transmission in the Rinzai school of Buddhism.
• 1998: In 1998 Kay Ward became the first female bishop in the Moravian Church.
• 1998: After 900 years without such ordinations, Sri Lanka again began to ordain women as fully ordained Buddhist nuns, called bhikkhunis.
• 1999: The Independent Presbyterian Church of Brazil allowed the ordination of women as either clergy or elders.
• 1999: The Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) became the first large denomination to have a majority of female ministers. In April 1999, female ministers outnumbered their male counterpart 431 to 422.
• 1999: Beth Lockard was ordained as the first Deaf pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
• 1999: The first female bishop of the Czechoslovak-Hussite church was elected to a 7-year term of office in April 1999.
• 1999: Tamara Kolton became the first rabbi of either sex (and therefore, because she was female, the first female rabbi) to be ordained in Humanistic Judaism.
• 1999: Katalin Kelemen, born in Hungary but ordained at Leo Baeck College in England, was inducted as the rabbi of the Sim Shalom Progressive Jewish Congregation in Budapest, Hungary, thus becoming the first female rabbi in Hungary.
• 1999: Angela Warnick Buchdahl, born in Seoul, Korea, became the first Asian-American person to be ordained as a cantor in the world when she was ordained by HUC-JIR, an American seminary for Reform Judaism.
• 2000: The Baptist Union of Scotland voted to allow their individual churches to make local decisions as to whether to allow or prohibit the ordination of women.
• 2000: The Mennonite Brethren Church of Congo ordained its first female pastor in 2000.
• 2000: Helga Newmark, born in Germany, became the first female Holocaust survivor ordained as a rabbi. She was ordained in America.
• 2000: In July 2000 Vashti McKenzie was elected as the first female bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church.
• 2000: The Mombasa diocese of the Anglican Church in Kenya began to ordain women.
• 2000: The Church of Pakistan ordained its first female deacons. It is a united church which dates back to the 1970 local merger of Anglicans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans and other Protestant denominations.
• 2001: Angela Warnick Buchdahl, born in Seoul, Korea, became the first Korean-American person to be ordained as a rabbi in the world; she was ordained by HUC-JIR, an American seminary for Reform Judaism.
• 2001: Eveline Goodman-Thau became the first female rabbi in Austria; she was born in Austria but ordained in Jerusalem.
• 2001: Deborah Davis became the first cantor of either sex (and therefore, since she was female, the first female cantor) in Humanistic Judaism; however, Humanistic Judaism has since stopped graduating cantors.
• 2002: Sharon Hordes became the very first cantor in Reconstructionist Judaism. Therefore, since she was a woman, she became their first female cantor.
• 2002: Rabbi Pamela Frydman became the first female president of OHALAH (Association of Rabbis for Jewish Renewal)
• 2002: Avitall Gerstetter became the first female cantor in Jewish Renewal and the first female cantor in Germany.
• 2002: The Danube Seven (Christine Mayr-Lumetzberger, Adelinde Theresia Roitinger, Gisela Forster, Iris Muller, Ida Raming, Pia Brunner and Angela White), a group of seven women from Germany, Austria, and the United States, were ordained on a ship on the Danube on 29 June 2002 by Rómulo Antonio Braschi, an Independent Catholic bishop whose own episcopal ordination was considered 'valid but illicit' by the Roman Catholic Church. The women's ordinations were not, however, recognised as being valid by the Roman Catholic Church. As a consequence of this violation of canon law and their refusal to repent, the women were excommunicated in 2003. Since then several similar actions have been held by Roman Catholic Womenpriests, a group in favor of women's ordination in Roman Catholicism; this was the first such action.
• 2002: Khenmo Drolma, an American woman, became the first Bhikkhuni (fully ordained Buddhist nun) in the Drikung Kagyu lineage of Buddhism, traveling to Taiwan to be ordained.
• 2002: A 55-year-old Buddhist nun, Varanggana Vanavichayen, became the first female monk to be ordained in Thailand. She was ordained by a Sri Lankan woman monk in the presence of a male Thai monk. Theravada scriptures, as interpreted in Thailand, require that for a woman to be ordained as a monk, the ceremony must be attended by both a male and female monk.
• 2003: Ayya Sudhamma became the first American-born woman to receive bhikkhuni ordination in Sri Lanka.
• 2003: Sarah Schechter became the first female rabbi in the U.S. Air Force.
• 2003: Sandra Kochmann, born in Paraguay, became the first female rabbi in Brazil.
• 2003: Born in Canada and educated in England, Nancy Morris became Scotland's first female rabbi in 2003.
• 2003: Rabbi Janet Marder was named the first female president of the Reform Movement's Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) on March 26, 2003, making her the first woman to lead a major rabbinical organization and the first woman to lead any major Jewish co-ed religious organization in the United States.
• 2003: On February 28, 2003, Dhammananda Bhikkhuni, formerly known as Chatsumarn Kabilsingh, became the first Thai woman to receive full ordination as a Theravada nun. She was ordained in Sri Lanka.
• 2003: Sivan Malkin Maas became the first Israeli to be ordained as a rabbi in Humanistic Judaism; she was ordained by the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism in 2003.
• 2003: In the summer of 2003, two of the Danube Seven, Christine Mayr-Lumetzberger (from Austria) and Gisela Forster (from Germany), were ordained as bishops by several male bishops of independent churches not affiliated with the Vatican. These ordinations were done in secret and are not recognised as valid by the Roman Catholic Church. At the death of the male bishops, their identities will be revealed. Since then several similar actions have been held by Roman Catholic Womenpriests, a group in favor of women's ordination in Roman Catholicism; this was the first such action for female bishops.
• 2004: Khenmo Drolma, an American woman, became the first westerner of either sex to be installed as an abbot in the Drikung Kagyu lineage of Buddhism, being installed as the abbot of the Vajra Dakini Nunnery in Vermont (America's first Buddhist nunnery) in 2004.
• 2004: Barbara Aiello, born and ordained in the United States, became the first female rabbi in Italy.
• 2004: In Canada, Yasmin Shadeer led the night 'Isha prayer for a mixed-gender (men as well as women praying and hearing the sermon) congregation. This is the first recorded occasion in modern times where a woman led a congregation in prayer in a mosque.
• 2004: Genevieve Benay (from France), Michele Birch-Conery (from Canada), Astride Indrican (from Latvia), Victoria Rue (from the USA), Jane Via (from the USA), and Monika Wyss (from Switzerland) were ordained as deacons on a ship in the Danube. The women's ordinations were not, however, recognised as being valid by the Roman Catholic Church. As a consequence of this violation of canon law and their refusal to repent, the women were excommunicated. Since then several similar actions have been held by Roman Catholic Womenpriests, a group in favor of women's ordination in Roman Catholicism; this was the first such action for female deacons.
• 2005: The Lutheran Evangelical Protestant Church, (LEPC) (GCEPC) in the USA elected Nancy Kinard Drew as its first female Presiding Bishop.
• 2005: Annalu Waller, who had cerebral palsy, was ordained as the first disabled female priest in the Scottish Episcopal Church.
• 2005: Floriane Chinsky, born in Paris and ordained in Jerusalem, became Belgium's first female rabbi.
• 2005: In April 2005, Raheel Raza, born in Pakistan, led Toronto's first woman-led mixed-gender Friday prayer service, delivering the sermon and leading the prayers of the mixed-gender congregation organized by the Muslim Canadian Congress to celebrate Earth Day in the backyard of the downtown Toronto home of activist Tarek Fatah.
• 2005: On July 1, 2005, Pamela Taylor, a Muslim convert since 1986, became the first woman to lead Friday prayers in a Canadian mosque, and did so for a congregation of both men and women. Pamela Taylor is an American convert to Islam and co-chair of the New York-based Progressive Muslim Union. In addition to leading the prayers, Taylor also gave a sermon on the importance of equality among people regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation and disability.
• 2005: Elisa Klapheck, born in Germany, became the first female rabbi in the Netherlands.
• 2005: On March 18, 2005, an American woman named Amina Wadud (an Islamic studies professor at Virginia Commonwealth University) gave a sermon and led Friday prayers for a Muslim congregation consisting of men as well as women, with no curtain dividing the men and women. Another woman, Suheyla El-Attar, sounded the call to prayer while not wearing a headscarf at that same event. This was done in the Synod House of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York after mosques refused to host the event. This was the first time a woman led a mixed-gender Muslim congregation in prayer in American history.
• 2006: Susan Wehle became the first American female cantor in Jewish Renewal in 2006; however, she died in 2009.
• 2006: The Episcopal Church elected Katharine Jefferts Schori as its first female Presiding Bishop, or Primate.
• 2006: Merle Kodo Boyd, born in Texas, became the first African-American woman ever to receive Dharma transmission in Zen Buddhism.
• 2006: For the first time in American history, a Buddhist ordination was held where an American woman (Sister Khanti-Khema) took the Samaneri (novice) vows with an American monk (Bhante Vimalaramsi) presiding. This was done for the Buddhist American Forest Tradition at the Dhamma Sukha Meditation Center in Missouri.
• 2006: The Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Church ordained its first six female pastors.
• 2006: Sharon Ballantyne was ordained as the first blind minister in the United Church of Canada.
• 2007: The Worldwide Church of God, a denomination with about 860 congregations worldwide, decided to allow women to serve as pastors and elders. This decision was reached after several years of study. Debby Bailey became the first female elder in the Worldwide Church of God in 2007.
• 2007: The current Dalai Lama stated that the next Dalai Lama could possibly be a woman, remarking "If a woman reveals herself as more useful the lama could very well be reincarnated in this form".
• 2007: Tanya Segal, born in Russia and ordained in Jerusalem, became the first full-time female rabbi in Poland.
• 2007: Nerva Cot Aguilera became Latin America's first female bishop, as the bishop of the Episcopal Church of Cuba.
• 2007: The synod of the Christian Reformed Church voted 112-70 to allow any Christian Reformed Church congregation that wishes to do so to ordain women as ministers, elders, deacons and/or ministry associates; since 1995, congregations and regional church bodies called "classes" already had the option of ordaining women, and 26 of the 47 classes had exercised it before the vote in June.
• 2007: Myokei Caine-Barrett, born and ordained in Japan, became the first female Nichiren priest in her affiliated Nichiren Order of North America.
• 2008: Mildred "Bonnie" Hines was elected as the first female bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.
• 2008: The Rev. Joaquina Filipe Nhanala was elected to oversee the Mozambique area for the United Methodist Church, thus becoming the first female United Methodist bishop in Africa.
• 2008: Kay Goldsworthy became the first female bishop of the Anglican Church in Australia.
• 2008: On 17 October 2008, Amina Wadud, born in the United States, became the first woman to lead a mixed-gender congregation in prayer in the United Kingdom when she performed the Friday prayers at Oxford's Wolfson College.
• 2008: Rabbi Julie Schonfeld was named the new executive vice president of the Conservative movement's Rabbinical Assembly, becoming the first female rabbi to serve in the chief executive position of an American rabbinical association.
• 2009: The first Bhikkhuni ordination in Australia in the Theravada Buddhist tradition was performed in Perth, Australia, on 22 October 2009 at Bodhinyana Monastery. Abbess Vayama together with Venerables Nirodha, Seri, and Hasapanna were ordained as Bhikkhunis by a dual Sangha act of Bhikkhus and Bhikkhunis in full accordance with the Pali Vinaya.
• 2009: Karen Soria became the first female rabbi in the Canadian Forces; she was assigned to 3 Canadian Forces Flying Training School in Portage La Prairie, Manitoba.
• 2009: The Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) elected Margot Käßmann as its first female Presiding Bishop, or Primate; she received 132 out of 142 votes. However, she chose to resign in 2010, after she was caught drink driving, although the Council of the EKD judged unanimously that it was not grounds for a resignation.
• 2009: Alysa Stanton, born in Cleveland and ordained by a Reform Jewish seminary in Cincinnati, became the world's first black female rabbi.
• 2009: Lynn Feinberg became the first female rabbi in Norway, where she was born.
• 2009: The Rev Jana Jeruma-Grinberga became Britain's first female bishop in a mainstream British church, the Lutheran Church in Great Britain.
• 2009: Tannoz Bahremand Foruzanfar, who was born in Iran, became the first Persian woman to be ordained as a cantor in the United States.
• 2009: Wu Chengzhen became the first female Fangzhang (meaning principal abbot) in Taoism's 1,800-year history after being enthroned at Changchun Temple in Wuhan, capital of Hubei province, in China. Fangzhang is the highest position in a Taoist temple.
• 2010: The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland elected Irja Askola of the Diocese of Helsinki as its first female bishop.
• 2010: Sara Hurwitz, an Orthodox Jewish woman born in South Africa, was given the title of “rabbah” (sometimes spelled “rabba”), the feminine form of rabbi. In early 2009, she had completed the same coursework and exams required of male rabbinic candidates. The idea of ordaining a woman rabbi is highly controversial in Orthodox Jewish communities, so the title “maharat” was created on her behalf. It was derived from the acronym for “manhiga”, “hilchatit”, “ruchanit” and “toranit”, loosely translating to mean a leader in religious law and spiritual matters. The term, however, did not catch on. As of 2010, Rabbah Sara Hurwitz serves as the Dean of Yeshivat Maharat and serves on the rabbinic staff of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale in New York.
• 2010: For the first time in the history of the Church of England, more women than men were ordained as priests. (290 women and 273 men).
• 2010: The first American women to be ordained as cantors in Jewish Renewal after Susan Wehle's ordination were Michal Rubin and Abbe Lyons, both ordained on January 10, 2010.
• 2010: The International Rabbinic Fellowship, a fellowship of about 150 Orthodox rabbis, adopted a resolution stating that properly trained Orthodox Jewish women should have the opportunity to serve as "teachers of Torah", "persons who can answer questions and provide guidance to both men and women in all areas of Jewish law in which they are well-versed", "clergy who function as pastoral counselors", "spiritual preachers and guides who teach classes and deliver divrei Torah and derashot, in the synagogue and out, both during the week and on Shabbatot and holidays", "spiritual guides and mentors helping arrange and managing life-cycle events such as weddings, bar- and bat-mitzvah celebrations and funerals, while refraining from engaging in those aspects of these events that Halakha does not allow for women to take part in" and "presidents and full members of the boards of synagogues and other Torah institutions"; the resolution does not, however, mention whether these women should or can be ordained or what titles they can hold.
• 2010: In 2010, at the Orthodox Jewish synagogue Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, Lamelle Ryman led a Friday-night service as a cantor would. No other Orthodox synagogue in the U.S. had ever before had a woman lead a Kabbalat Shabbat service, although Orthodox institutions like the Darkhei Noam prayer group in New York and the Shira Hadasha congregation in Jerusalem already did have women leading Kabbalat Shabbat. In addition, there had been a female-led Kabbalat Shabbat in a Washington Heights apartment in Manhattan — most of the worshippers came from the Yeshiva University community — in 1987 that drew little attention or opposition. In any case, Lamelle Ryan was not ordained as a cantor, and as of 2010 Orthodox Judaism does not ordain women as cantors.
• 2010: Alina Treiger, born in Ukraine, became the first female rabbi to be ordained in Germany since World War II (the very first female rabbi ordained in Germany was Regina Jonas, ordained in 1935).
• 2010: The first Tibetan Buddhist nunnery in North America (Vajra Dakini Nunnery in Vermont), offering novice ordination in the Drikung Kagyu lineage of Buddhism, was officially consecrated.
• 2010: Teresa E. Snorton was elected as the first female bishop in the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church.
• 2010: In Northern California, 4 novice nuns were given the full bhikkhuni ordination in the Thai Therevada tradition, which included the double ordination ceremony. Bhante Gunaratana and other monks and nuns were in attendance. It was the first such ordination ever in the Western hemisphere. The following month, more full ordinations were completed in Southern California, led by Walpola Piyananda and other monks and nuns. The bhikkhunis ordained in Southern California were Lakshapathiye Samadhi (born in Sri Lanka), Cariyapanna, Susila, Sammasati (all three born in Vietnam), and Uttamanyana (born in Myanmar).
• 2010: Raheel Raza, born in Pakistan, became the first Muslim-born woman to lead a mixed-gender British congregation through Friday prayers.
• 2010: Delegates of the Fellowship of the Middle East Evangelical Churches unanimously voted in favor of a statement supporting the ordination of women as pastors, during their Sixth General Assembly. An English translation of the statement reads, "The Sixth General Assembly supports the ordination of the women in our churches in the position of ordained pastor and her partnership with men as an equal partner in decision making. Therefore we call on member churches to take leading steps in this concern."
• 2010: With the October 16, 2010, ordination of Margaret Lee, in the Peoria-based Diocese of Quincy, Illinois, women have been ordained as priests in all 110 dioceses of the Episcopal Church in the United States.
• 2011: Kirsten Eistrup, 55, became the first female priest in the Danish Seamen's Church in Singapore. She was also the Lutheran Protestant Church's first female pastor in Asia.
• 2011: Sandra Kviat became the first female rabbi from Denmark; she was ordained in England.
• 2011: Eva Marie Jansvik became the first female priest in the Norwegian Seamen's Church in Singapore.
• 2011: One third of the Catholic theology professors in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland (144 people) signed a declaration calling for women’s ordination and opposing "traditionalism" in the liturgy.
• 2011: Mary Whittaker became the first deaf person to be ordained into the Church of Scotland.
• 2011: The Anglican Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf was allowed to ordain women as priests and appoint them to single charge chaplaincies. On June 5, 2011, Catherine Dawkins was ordained by the bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf, the Right Rev Michael Lewis, during a ceremony at St Christopher's Cathedral, Manama. This makes her the first female priest in the Middle East.
• 2011: Stella Bentsi-Enchil, Alberta Kennies Addo and Susanna C. Naana Ackun were ordained as the first female priests of the Anglican Church of Ghana.
• 2011: The Evangelical Presbyterian Church's 31st General Assembly voted to allow congregations to call women to ordained ministry, even if their presbytery (governing body) objects for theological or doctrinal reasons. Such congregations will be allowed to leave the objecting presbytery (such as the Central South, which includes Memphis) and join an adjacent one that permits the ordination of women.
• 2011: The American Catholic Church in the United States, ACCUS, ordained their first woman priest, Kathleen Maria MacPherson, on June 12, 2011. She is now the pastor of the St. Oscar Romero Pastoral and Outreach Center in El Paso, Texas / Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico.
• 2012: Ilana Mills was ordained, thus making her, Jordana Chernow-Reader, and Mari Chernow the first three female siblings in America to become rabbis.
• 2012: Miri Gold, born in the United States, became the first non-Orthodox rabbi (and the first female rabbi) to have her salary paid by the Israeli government.
• 2012: Alona Lisitsa became the first female rabbi in Israel to join a religious council.
• 2012: Agnes M. Sigurðardóttir became the first female Bishop of Iceland.
• 2012: Eileen Harrop became the first woman from South East Asia (specifically, Singapore) to be ordained by the Church of England.
• 2012: Amel Manyon became the first South Sudanese woman to be ordained in the Uniting Church in Australia.
• 2012: Revd Ellinah Ntombi Wamukoya of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa became the bishop-elect of Swaziland and the first woman bishop in any of the 12 Anglican Provinces in Africa. She was consecrated as a bishop in November 2012.
• 2012: Pérsida Gudiel became the first woman ordained by the Lutheran Church in Guatemala.
• 2012: Mimi Kanku Mukendi became the first female pastor ordained by the Communauté Evan­gé­lique Mennonite au Congo (Mennonite Evangelical Community of Congo), although they voted to ordain women as pastors in 1993.
• 2012: The Mennonite Church of Congo approved women’s ordination.
• 2012: Christine Lee was ordained as the Episcopal Church's first female Korean-American priest.
• 2012: Alma Louise De bode-Olton became the first female priest ordained in the Anglican Episcopal Church in Curaçao.
• 2012: Revd Margaret Vertue of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa became the bishop-elect in the Cape Town area of False Bay and the second woman bishop in any of the 12 Anglican Provinces in Africa.