Women Deacons

Although several autonomous branches of the worldwide Anglican communion, including the U.S. Episcopal Church, have admitted women into the clergy, the Church of England, the parent body, has refused to follow their example. Leaders in the mother church have feared that such a move would end all hope of future reunion with Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox, and prompt wholesale defections of Church of England traditionalists.

Nevertheless, the Church of England's policymaking General Synod last week overwhelmingly endorsed the ordination of women as deacons, the clergy's lowest rank, which is beneath priests and bishops. If Parliament agrees, as seems likely, the church's 350 deaconesses, who are not ordained, can take their place alongside male deacons, performing marriages and assisting priests in other ways. Priests will continue to be the only celebrants of Holy Communion and dispensers of absolution. The pressure will be great, however, to allow the women deacons to advance to the next step, priesthood.