First Women
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. 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. Approximately 196 women are now ministers in the Church of Scotland.
The first female Moderator of the General Assembly was Dr Alison Elliot in 2004 – also the first elder to hold the post since the 16th century. In May 2007 the Revd Sheilagh M. Kesting became the first woman minister to be elected as Moderator of the General Assembly.
Women have also played an increasingly prominent rôle 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). 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.
Read more about this topic: Ordination Of Women In The Church Of Scotland
Famous quotes containing the word women:
“It is fair to assume that when women in the past have achieved even a second or third place in the ranks of genius they have shown far more native ability than men have needed to reach the same eminence. Not excused from the more general duties that constitute the cement of society, most women of talent have had but one hand free with which to work out their ideal conceptions.”
—Anna Garlin Spencer (1851–1931)
“I confess that I have hitherto indulged very little in philanthropic enterprises.... While my townsmen and women are devoted in so many ways to the good of their fellows, I trust that one at least may be spared to other and less humane pursuits. You must have a genius for charity as well as for anything else. As for Doing-good, that is one of the professions which are full.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)