The Church of Scotland was one of the first national churches to accept the ordination of women. In Presbyterianism, ordination is understood to be an ordinance rather than a sacrament; ministers and elders are ordained; until recently deacons were "commissioned" but now they too are ordained to their office in the Church of Scotland.
Women were commissioned as deacons (or "deaconesses") from 1888, [1] and allowed to preach from 1949. Serious debate on the ordination of women as ministers began when Mary Levison petitioned the General Assembly for ordination in 1963. She was eventually ordained as a Minister of Word and Sacrament in 1978, and in 1991 became the first woman to be appointed as Queen's Chaplain. [2]
In a Presbyterian Church, elders (who together with the minister form the kirk session and fulfill some of the functions of a parish council in other denominations) are ordained for life (ad vitam aut culpam) though in some cases without the laying-on of hands. The minister ("minister of Word and Sacrament", to use the full title) is a "teaching elder", the other kirk session members are "ruling elders", and the difference is understood to lie in the authority of the appointment rather than the spiritual nature of the ordinance. Consequently, the theological arguments for and against the ordination of women as elders were identical to those concerning women ministers, and the two debates ran in parallel and were settled more or less simultaneously. The General Assembly changed its legislation to allow the ordination of women as elders in 1966 and as ministers in 1968. [3]
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Lady Grisell Baillie (1822–1891) became the first deaconess in the Church of Scotland on 9 December 1888 in a service conducted by Dr James Mackenzie Allardyce at Bowden Kirk in Bowden, Scottish Borders. [4]
The first woman to be ordained as a minister in the Church of Scotland was the Revd Catherine McConnachie by the Presbytery of Aberdeen in 1969. [5] She served as assistant minister at St George's Tillydrone, in Aberdeen. In 1972 the Revd Euphemia H C. Irvine was the first to be ordained and inducted as a parish minister – at Milton of Campsie Parish Church, near Glasgow. She retired in 1988. In 2014, 204 women were serving ministers in the Church of Scotland within Scotland, representing 25.1% of the active Ministers of Word and Sacrament in the country. There were also 61 women serving as Ministries Development Staff. [6]
Women have also played an increasingly prominent role in the Church's administration. In 1996, the Revd Dr Marjory MacLean – then minister at Stromness, Orkney – was appointed as the first women to be Depute Clerk to the General Assembly and later served as acting Principal Clerk in 2002–2003 (and again in 2009). In 2022, the Rev Fiona Smith, previously minister of Ness Bank, Inverness, became the first woman to serve as full-time Principal Clerk. [7] A number of other senior administrators in the Church are women. Women have also been taking an increasing role in important non-pastoral functions in the church: in 2000 Rosemary Goring became the first female editor of Life and Work .
The first female Moderator of the General Assembly was Dr Alison Elliot in 2004, who was also the first elder to hold the post since the 16th century. [8] In May 2007 the Revd Sheilagh M. Kesting became the first female minister to be elected as Moderator of the General Assembly.
In certain Christian denominations, holy orders are the ordained ministries of bishop, priest (presbyter), and deacon, and the sacrament or rite by which candidates are ordained to those orders. Churches recognizing these orders include the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Anglican, Assyrian, Old Catholic, Independent Catholic and some Lutheran churches. Except for Lutherans and some Anglicans, these churches regard ordination as a sacrament.
A deacon is a member of the diaconate, an office in Christian churches that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions.
Presbyterianpolity is a method of church governance typified by the rule of assemblies of presbyters, or elders. Each local church is governed by a body of elected elders usually called the session, though other terms, such as church board, may apply. Groups of local churches are governed by a higher assembly of elders known as the presbytery or classis; presbyteries can be grouped into a synod, and presbyteries and synods nationwide often join together in a general assembly. Responsibility for conduct of church services is reserved to an ordained minister or pastor known as a teaching elder, or a minister of the word and sacrament.
The Church of Scotland is a Presbyterian denomination of Christianity that holds the status of the national church in Scotland. It is one of the country's largest, having 259,200 members in 2023. While membership in the church has declined significantly in recent decades, the government Scottish Household Survey found that 20% of the Scottish population, or over one million people, identified the Church of Scotland as their religious identity in 2019.
The ministry of a deaconess is a usually non-ordained ministry for women in some Protestant, Oriental Orthodox, and Eastern Orthodox churches to provide pastoral care, especially for other women, and which may carry a limited liturgical role. The word comes from the Greek diakonos (διάκονος), for "deacon", which means a servant or helper and occurs frequently in the Christian New Testament of the Bible.
The Church of Scotland maintains a presbyterian polity and is thus governed by a hierarchy of bodies known as church courts. Each of these courts has a moderator and a clerk.
A Church of Scotland congregation is led by its minister and elders. Both of these terms are also used in other Christian denominations: see Minister (Christianity) and Elder (Christianity). This article discusses the specific understanding of their roles and functions in the Scottish Church.
Sheilagh Kesting is a Scottish minister of the Church of Scotland. She served as Moderator of the General Assembly from May 2007 to May 2008. She was the first female minister to be elected Moderator; she was the second woman as a female elder, Alison Elliot, had been elected for the 2004/2005 session. Since 1993, she has been based at the Church of Scotland Offices in Edinburgh as the full-time Secretary of the Church of Scotland Committee on Ecumenical Relations. She retired in September 2016 and was created a Dame of the Order of St Gregory the Great by Pope Francis in November 2016 in recognition of her exceptional service to the Holy See, and as a result of her commitment to ecumenism in Scotland.
Attitudes in Presbyterianism toward homosexuality vary, ranging from outright condemnation to complete acceptance.
In Christianity, the ordination of women has been taking place in an increasing number of Protestant and Old Catholic churches, starting in the 20th century. Since ancient times, certain churches of the Orthodox tradition, such as the Coptic Orthodox Church, have raised women to the office of deaconess. While ordination of women has been approved in many denominations, it is a very controversial and divisive topic.
The moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland is the minister or elder chosen to moderate (chair) the annual General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, which is held for a week in Edinburgh every year. After chairing the Assembly, the Moderator then spends the following year representing the Church of Scotland at civic events, and visiting congregations and projects in Scotland and beyond.
Lady Grisell Baillie was the first woman to be created a deaconess in the Church of Scotland.
Angus Morrison, is a minister of the Church of Scotland who was Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland 2015–2016. He had been nominated for the role a year earlier but withdrew because of ill health. He is an Extra Chaplain to the King in Scotland, appointed in 2023.
Elizabeth Glendinning Kirkwood Hewat was the first woman to graduate BD and PhD at New College, University of Edinburgh, a missionary, a campaigner for women's equality in the Church of Scotland, and a historian of Scottish missions.
Mary Irene Levison was the first person to petition the Church of Scotland for the ordination of women to the Ministry of Word and Sacrament in 1963. This was achieved five years later and Levison became a minister in 1973. In 1991 she was appointed as Queen's Chaplain, the first woman to hold the position.
William Roy Sanderson was a Scottish minister who served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1967. In 1961 he had organised the first meeting between a moderator and the pope. He was chaplain in ordinary to Queen Elizabeth II in Scotland.
Helen Margaret Aitken Reid, also known by her married surname Reid-Martin, was a New Zealand religious leader. She was the first woman in New Zealand to be ordained as a Presbyterian minister, and the second woman to serve as moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand.
Marion Macfarlane was the first woman to be ordained in the Anglican Church in Australia. She was ordained to the "Female Diaconate" in 1884 in the Diocese of Melbourne, then in 1886 converted to Catholicism, took the name Sister Mary Euphrasia, and joined the Sisters of the Good Shepherd.