Female priests a hard-won fight in Episcopal church

From Scranton-

Thirty-seven years ago, a Bear Creek woman made history at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Scranton.

At a ceremony on May 21, 1977, presided over by the Rev. Lloyd E. Gressle, the bishop of the Diocese of Bethlehem,

The graduate of Epsicopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, knew she wanted to be an Episcopal priest since her college days at Middlebury College in Vermont, according to a Scranton Times article published the day before her ordination.

But it took a close, contentious vote by church leaders from around the nation before she could realize her dream.

In September 1976, delegates attending an Episcopalian legislative convention in Minneapolis approved the ordination of women to the priesthood. Four months later, Jacqueline Means of Indianapolis became the first woman priest ordained in the Episcopal church.
Margaret Lee Ferry became the first female Episcopal priest ordained in Scranton.

More here-

http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/local-history-female-priests-a-hard-won-fight-in-episcopal-church-1.1695890