Print friendly
The first English woman to be made a priest in the Anglican communion has died, aged 92.
Rev. Joyce Bennett was ordained in the Chinese branch of the Anglican Church in 1971, 23 years before the Church of England ordained its first female clergy.
Before this, the only woman to be ordained in an Anglican diocese had been the Hong Kong-born Rev Florence Li Tim-Oi.
She was also ordained in Hong Kong, in 1944 during the Japanese occupation.
But to avoid controversy, she resigned her licence shortly after the end of the war.
Ordained for work in the Chinese-speaking part of the diocese of Hong Kong and Macao, Rev. Bennett conducted most of her church work in Cantonese.
She once wrote that Chinese church members considered her gender irrelevant.
Related Posts:
News category: News Shorts.
