The Feast Day of the Philadelphia Eleven

Today marks the anniversary and feast day of the “Philadelphia Eleven.” Fifty-two years ago, on July 29, 1974, eleven women were ordained to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church. Just four years earlier, in 1970, women had been seated as deputies to General Convention for the first time. At that Convention they introduced a resolution to allow for the ordination of women, but it failed. They tried again at the next General Convention in 1973, and it failed again.

And so in 1974, three retired bishops ordained eleven women to the priesthood, knowing the Church would declare their actions “irregular.” But the gospel now had a new voice. In 1976, at the very next General Convention, the Episcopal Church approved the ordination of women to the priesthood and regularized the ministries of the “Philadelphia Eleven,” paving the way for every female priest you’ve ever met.

The first female priest I ever met was a woman named Janice Bracken Wright. In 2000, I was visiting St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Rome, Georgia, for the second week in a row. They were at the beginning of a rector search, and I was at the beginning of finding my way into the Episcopal Church and eventually, the priesthood. Janice, a former associate rector, had returned to help fill in as they waited for the arrival of their interim priest.

Most of you know that I grew up in the Southern Baptist church, but you should know that where I grew up, there weren’t a lot of political fights or culture wars. We didn’t have any female ministers, but it also wasn’t something the pastor ever railed against from the pulpit. And so when I walked into St. Peter’s that day and I saw Janice preach and celebrate the Eucharist, I didn’t have an earth-shaking experience. I simply walked away saying, “Well, that makes sense.” Seeing her in leadership opened up a new possibility for me, something I had always been ready for, but had never imagined.

I learned later that Janice was among the first women ordained in the Diocese of Virginia, on June 26, 1982. She went through the discernment process after that 1976 General Convention and then went to Emory University’s Candler Theological Seminary. She was ordained in Virginia, but no church there would hire her. For a year, rectors and search committees would tell her how wonderful she was, but every conversation finished with, “We’re just not ready for a woman priest.” Eventually, it was a rector in a small town in northwest Georgia who gave her a chance.

Janice’s entire ministry (with a few short exceptions) was at St. Peter’s in Rome. She was associate rector, helped out during that interim, and eventually came back as associate when the new rector was called. She was also the college chaplain, still serving in that role when I was a student during those first years of finding my way into the Episcopal Church. Janice was a pastor, but she was also one of the finest preachers I ever heard. She somehow combined a serious read of the gospel with a sense of humor and a flair for story and imagery, all of which I’m still trying to emulate all these years later.

My ministry has been profoundly shaped by women everywhere I have been. There are, of course, the altar guilds and senior wardens, the secretaries and the teachers. There are also a number of ordained women whose influence on me is clear as day: the women I went to seminary with, three of whom I’m in a colleague group with; there’s my first boss, Penny Bridges, my predecessor at St. Mark’s in LaGrange, Lori Lowe, the deacon there, Jane Dorman, and the wonderful women in ministry I’ve worked with here at Christ Church, who are really too many to name.

There are more women than I can count in my story. There are so many in your story too. Today, we give thanks for all those stories, and especially the “Philadelphia Eleven.” We give thanks for the grace of God giving women a sense of abiding faith even when their gifts were not recognized by the church at large. We say thank you to all the women who have led us here. We say thank you to the God who has given us their ministry as a gift.