This year marks a significant anniversary for women’sordination in the Anglican Church. It is eighty years since the first Anglicanwoman priest was ordained in dangerous wartime conditions for the Diocese of HongKong in 1944.
Li Tim Oi, a gentle Chinesedeaconess, had been single-handedly leading the Anglican congregation in Macao,then a neutral Portuguese colony, since 1941. Though called a deaconess, she wasactually a deacon, as the Chinese Anglican Church used the ordination servicefor deacons for women as well as men. This made that church far ahead of therest of the Anglican Communion.
Throughout 1941, prieststravelled from Hong Kong to celebrate Holy Communion for her largecongregation. But at the end of the year Hong Kong fell to the Japanese, makingthat no longer possible. Her congregation – suffering from great privation anddistress and often close to starvation – was cut off from the sacrament. So LiTim Oi, still a deacon, was initially authorised to celebrate Holy Communion,until the Bishop of Hong Kong, Bishop R.O. Hall, ordained her as a priest. Bothof them travelled across dangerous enemy lines to meet in the mainland city ofZhaoqing where, on 25 January 1944, he ordained her a priest in the Church ofGod.
Bishop Hall later wrote that hehad an amazing feeling of quiet conviction about this — as if it was how Godwanted it to happen rather than with a formal regularisation first. Heexplained that the people had needed pastoral ministry of a sacramental nature,and so, as their pastor, he had provided it. In a letter to the Archbishop ofCanterbury, he said that he had taken this action not because of theoreticalviews of the equality of men and women but because of the need of the peoplefor the sacraments. He recognised in her “the manifest gift of the pastoralcharisma”.
All hell broke loose once theArchbishop of Canterbury and the wider church received the news. Li Tim Oi wasforced to refrain from calling herself a priest and to stop celebrating theeucharist, although she never resigned her Holy Orders. Bishop Hall was severelycastigated by two Archbishops of Canterbury in succession, no less. Despitethis, he never wavered from his view that he had done the right thing – in hisview, the only possible thing – in ordaining her.
After the war, once China cameunder Communist rule, Li Tim Oi, forgotten by the Anglican world, wasdesignated a counter-revolutionary and persecuted by the Red Guards. She wasforced to work on a chicken farm and then in a factory. She was was not able toresume her priestly ministry until she moved to Canada in the 1980s.
No struggle over theology, churchlaw or church unity preceded Li Tim Oi’s ordination. The first ordinationhappened because two people – a Chinese woman of deep faith and a courageousEnglish-born bishop – both heard and obeyed God’s call to do something new forthe sake of the Gospel. So God raised up both Li Tim Oi and Bishop R.O. Hall asprophets among the people.
It was in Hong Kong where thenext two women priests were ordained in 1971, again without great angst.Ordinations followed in quick succession in the United States, Canada and NewZealand during the 1970s. Australia’s gruelling debates kept us waiting until1992, the year Li Tim Oi died.
Because of the faithfulness of LiTim Oi, Bishop R.O.Hall and many others after them, we can rejoice and givethanks for the priestly and episcopal ministry of women among us. They shouldinspire our church to listen for God’s voice today, calling us to something newfor the sake of the Gospel. They stepped out in faith, and so should we.
