Timeline of women's religious ordination

6th Century BCE

• Maha Pajapati Gotami, aunt of the Buddha, becomes the first Buddhist nun.[1]

• Asenath Barzani, daughter of Kurdish rabbi Samuel Barzanî, becomes director of a seminary in Mosul after the death of her husband, also a rabbi. She is considered by some to be the first female rabbi.[2]
• 1637 - Anne Hutchinson, a Puritan woman in Boston, Massachusetts, is put on trial for heresy. She had been holding religious gatherings in her home, where she commented on local clergy's sermons and discussed theological topics.[3] She was accused of holding Antinomian views, and not respecting the clergy's authority. She was excommunicated in 1638, and forced to leave the colony.[4]

• 1819 - Jarena Lee is authorized by Richard Allen to preach in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. She is the first woman to preach in the denomination.[5]
• 1854 - Antionette Brown Blackwell is ordained to the Christian ministry by the Congregational church of South Butler, New York. She has been recognized as the first woman fully ordained to the Christian ministry. The Congregational Church authorizes local congregations to ordain candidates to the ministry. Brown Blackwell served a pastorate for only one year, but continued to preach until her death.[6][7]
• 1855 - Bishop William Rollinson Williamson of the Diocese of Maryland in the Episcopal Church USA, creates an order of deaconesses, ordaining two women to the role to serve as nurses.[8][9]
• 1863 - Olympia Brown is ordained to Christian ministry by the Universalist Church. She is considered by many to be the first woman ordained to Christian ministry by a mainline denominational authority.[10][11]
• 1884 - The Anglican Church in Australia allows for the appointing of women deacons, but they are not ordained.[12]
• November 1889 - Louisa Woosley is ordained by the Presbytery of Nolin, of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. She was the first Presbyterian woman ordained as a minister.[13][14]
• September 1893, Ray Frank presents a talk on "Woman in the Synagogue" at the first Jewish Women's Congress, held in conjunction with the Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago. While not ordained, Frank is an respected religious leader and preacher.[15]

• 1911 - St. Joan's Alliance is founded in London, as a Catholic women's suffrage organization. The group also advocates for women's ordination.[16][17]
• 1922 - The Presbyterian Church USA allows for the ordination of women deaconesses.[18]
• 1927 - Winifred Kiek is ordained in the Congregational Church in Australia, becoming the first woman to be ordained to ministry in the country.[19]
• 1928 - The Sangha Act in Thailand outlaws the ordination of women as bhikkhunis, or Buddhist nuns.[20]
• January 25, 1944 - Florence Li Tim-Oi was ordained as an Anglican priest in Shaoqing by Bishop Ronald Hall. She had previously been ordained a deacon, and had been given permission to offer sacraments on Macau during the Japanese occupation of the island. She became the first woman ordained as a priest in the Anglican communion.[21]

• October 24, 1956 - Margaret Towner is the first woman fully ordained as a minister in the Presbyterian Church USA.[22][23]
• 1969 - Margaret Sanders and Coralie Ling are the first women ordained to ministry in the Methodist Church in Australia.[12]
• November 22, 1970 - Elizabeth Platz is ordained as the first woman minister in the Lutheran Church of America.[24]
• 1972 - Sally Priestand becomes the first woman rabbi in the United States. She is ordained in the Reformed tradition.[25]
• 1973 - Churches of Christ in Australia begins ordaining women.[12]
• 1973- The General Convention of the Episcopal Church USA defeats measure to approve women's ordination.
• 1974 - Marlene (Polly) Thalheimer is ordained in the Presbyterian Church of Australia, as their first woman minister.[12]
• July 29, 1974 - Eleven women are irregularly ordained to the ministry in the Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. They become known as the "Philadelphia Eleven." Their ordinations are performed by two bishops supportive of women's ordination, but are not officially recognized.
• 1975 - Colleen O'Reilly and Zandra Wilson launch Anglican Women Concerned, to lobby for women's ordination in the Anglican Church in Australia.[12]
• 1975 - Women's Ordination Conference is founded to advocate for women's ordination in the Catholic Church.[17]
• 1977 - The Jewish Rabbinical Authority and Jewish Theological Seminary in the USA establish a Commission for the Study of the Ordination of Women as Rabbis.[26]
• January 7, 1977 - The first official ordinations of women in the Episcopal Church USA occur in a ceremony held at the Washington Cathedral. Pauli Murray becomes the first African American woman to be an Episcopal priest. The ordinations of the Philadelphia Eleven are recognized.[27]
• 1977 - Anne Holmes is the first openly lesbian woman ordained in the United Church of Christ in the USA.[28]
• 1978 - The Baptist Union of Australia begins ordaining women.[12]
• March 4, 1979 - Lydia Rivera Kalb becomes the first Latina to be ordained in the Lutheran Church of America.[24]
• August 26, 1979 - Earleen Miller is the first black woman ordained in the Lutheran Church of America.[24]
• 1980 - Marjorie Matthews is elected bishop in the United Methodist Church, the first woman bishop in the US.[29]
• 1983 - An international Woman-Church conference is held in Chicago, launching the Woman-Church movement.[17][30]
• 1983 - Patricia Brennan and Colleen O'Reilly found the Movement for the Ordination of Women in Australia.[31][12]
• 1988 - Nan Arrington Peete, rector of All Saints Church in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA, becomes the first ordained woman to address the Lambeth Conference, an international gathering of Anglican bishops.[32]
• February 11, 1989 - Barbara Harris was consecrated as bishop in the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts in the Episcopal Church USA. The service was held at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, Massachusetts. She was the first woman bishop in the Anglican communion.[33]
• January 22, 1990 - Ruth Frost and Phyllis Zillhart are ordained at St. Francis Lutheran Church in San Francisco, California, causing debate with in the ELCA. A lesbian couple, the women were ordained without official sanction by their denomination. Their ordinations were later recognized by the ELCA in 2010.[24][34]
• 1992 - Numerous women are ordained as priests throughout the Anglican Church of Australia, after the General Synod voted in 1991 to allow women's ordination. The diocese of Sydney continues to bar women from the priesthood.[35]
• November 11, 1992 - General Synod of the Church of England votes to allow women to be ordained as priests.[36] The vote does not allow women to be elected as bishops.[35]
• March 12, 1994 - The first 32 women are ordained as priests in the Church of England, in a joint ordination service in Bristol Cathedral. The ordinands are ordained alphabetically, therefore Angela Berners-Wilson officially becomes the first woman priest in the Church of England.[37]
• May 22, 1994 - Pope John Paul II issues an apostolic letter, "Ordinatio Sacerdotalis," which re-emphases the Roman Catholic Church's position that the priesthood is reserved for men alone.[38]

• 2000
  • Ayya Santini is ordained as a bhikkhuni (fully ordained nun) in the Therevada tradition. She is the first woman to be ordained in the tradition for hundreds of years.[39]
  • Vashti Murphy McKenzie is elected as the 117th bishop in the African Episcopal Methodist Church. She is the first woman to become a bishop in any of the historic Black churches in the U.S.
• 29 June 2002 - A group of Catholic women are ordained to the priesthood in a service held on a riverboat on the Danube, on the border between Germany and Austria.[40] Romulo Braschi, an Archbishop from Argentina performed the ordinations; his authority to do so was contested by the Vatican. The women were from Austria, Germany and the United States. They are later excommunicated.[41]
• July 2005 - Michele Birch-Conery becomes the first woman in Canada to be ordained as Catholic priest, by a bishop from the Roman Catholic Women Priest movement. Her ordination is not recognized by the Vatican.[42]
• May 2009 - Eva Brunne is elected bishop of Stockholm in the Church of Sweden. She is the first openly lesbian woman to be elevated to the position of bishop in any mainline Christian church.[43]
• June 6, 2009 - Alysa Stanton becomes first African-American woman to be ordained a Jewish rabbi. She is ordained in the Reform tradition, in a ceremony held at the Hebrew College/Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA.[44]
• 2010 - Olga Lucia Alvarez, from Colombia, is ordained in the US, by the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests. She is the first Latin American woman to be ordained a Catholic priest. Her ordination is not recognized by the Vatican, and she was excommunicated.[45]
• November 17, 2012 - Ellinah Ntombi Wamukoya, of the Anglican Church of South Africa, is consecrated as a bishop at the Mavuso Trade Centre in Manzini, Swaziland. She is the first woman to be elevated to bishop within the Anglican provinces in Africa.[46]
• July 2017 - Jo Inkpin announces her gender transition to become the first openly transgender Anglican priest in Australia.
• May 2019 - Waitohiariki Quayle is elected bishop of Upoko o Te Ika. She is the first Maori woman to be elected bishop, and also the first woman bishop who was born in Aotearoa/New Zealand.[47]
• June 2019 - Rose Hudson-Wilkin is consecrated bishop in the Church of England, becoming the first black woman bishop in the Church of England[48]
• March 2021 - Jo Inkpin becomes the first transgender person to be inducted into ministry in a mainstream church in Australia.
• May 2021 - Megan Rohrer is consecrated as a bishop in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, becoming the first transgender person to be elevated to the rank of bishop in a major US Christian denomination.[49]

The first women to be ordained Pastors were of the Moravian Church on 12 May 1758. During an ordination service in Herrnhut on May 12, 1758, three women were ordained as “priestesses” or presbyters of the Moravian Church:

Elisabeth Layritz Marie von Zinzendorf Magdelena Vierorth.

It was a memorable ordination service during which not only the three priestesses but also eighteen deaconesses, twenty-seven deacons, six priests (presbyters) and two(male) bishops were ordained [50]