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The Philadelphia Eleven are eleven women who were ordained as the first female priests in the Episcopal Church on July 29, 1974, two years before General Convention affirmed and explicitly authorized the ordination of women to the priesthood. ==Background== In the Episcopal Church in the United States, a member church of the worldwide Anglican Communion, no canon law existed prohibiting the ordination of women as deacons, priests and bishops.〔''Womanpriest'', Bozarth-Campbell, first edition, Paulist Press (1978), pp. 105-109,114-115〕 However, the custom of ordaining only men was the norm. Ordained women deacons were subject to a canon law which referred to them as "deaconesses". Although they were understood by themselves and their bishops as being in holy orders,〔Bozarth-Campbell (1978), pp.77,85-87〕 they were treated differently from their male counterparts who were simply called deacons. By custom they were celibate and wore a blue habit-like garb which gave them the appearance of nuns, though they were not nuns.〔Hein & Shattuck (2004), p. 98〕 By custom women were denied ordination to the priesthood. During the first half of the twentieth century women in the Episcopal Church had begun exploring ways to increase their participation in the life of the church. Many women became church workers or directors of religious education.〔Hein & Shattuck (2004), p. 128〕 The movement gained explicit momentum in 1970 when laywomen were seated with voice and vote for the first time in General Convention, the bicameral legislative body of the Episcopal Church, and called for a vote to eliminate the canon law on "Deaconesses" so that male and female deacons would be treated equally.〔Bozarth-Campbell (1978), pp.109-112〕 In 1965, Bishop James Pike of the Episcopal Diocese of California recognized Phyllis Edwards as a deacon in his diocese.〔Sumner (1987), pp. 16–17〕 She had been ordained a year earlier under the old canon law using the term "deaconess". This increased awareness led to the General Convention of 1970 eliminating canonical distinctions between male deacons and female deaconesses, allowing women already ordained to marry for the first time and to discard the old habits. It made clear that women seeking ordination would be recognized as full and equal deacons.〔 The Episcopal Church was then presented with the issue of whether to ordain women as priests and bishops too. A resolution was put forward by the women deputies at the 1970 General Convention to approve women’s ordination to the priesthood and episcopate. It failed to pass the House of Deputies, but nonetheless had much positive support.〔Sumner (1987), p. 19〕 The Anglican Consultative Council met for the first time in 1971 and considered the issue of women’s ordination to the priesthood on a communion-wide level, resolving that women should be allowed to be ordained priests under certain local conditions.〔“Church News Briefs” (1971)〕 Thus in an effort to prepare for the next General Convention in 1973, a group of female professional church workers, deaconesses, female seminarians, and their supporters met in 1971 to form the Episcopal Women’s Caucus, a national coalition to plan future advocacy work for women’s ordination.〔Prichard (1999), pp. 256–7〕 However, when similar legislation failed to pass at the 1973 General Convention because of a parliamentary technicality,〔General Convention allows for controversial votes in the House of Deputies to be done by orders. This means that each diocesan delegation of four clergy deputies and four lay deputies is divided into its lay and clerical parts whose votes are counted separately. For the vote in either of the two orders to be counted as affirmative, at least three of the four deputies in that order must vote for the resolution. A divided vote (2–2) is counted as negative. The vote for women’s ordination in the clerical order of the House of Deputies was 50 dioceses “yes”, 43 “no”, and 20 divided; in the lay order it was 49 dioceses “yes”, 37 “no”, and 26 divided. Because each divided vote represented a negative vote, the motion was defeated. Hein & Shattuck (2004), pp. 140, 156 note 26〕 some of the women began to plan new strategies, feeling that they could not wait another three years for women’s priesthood to be legislatively approved. Deacon Suzanne Hiatt stated a shared sentiment among these women that their “vocation was not to continue to ask for permission to be a priest, but to be a priest.”〔Hein & Shattuck (2004), p. 140〕 In November 1973, several women deacons met with bishops who supported their cause, only to find them unwilling to ordain women to the priesthood until General Convention had settled the issue.〔 On December 15, 1973, when five women deacons presented themselves at an ordination service in New York, Bishop Paul Moore allowed them to participate but declined to lay hands on their heads at the moment of ordination.〔The five deacons were Carol Anderson, Emily Hewitt, Carter Heyward, Barbara Schlachter and Julia Sibley. Sumner (1987), pp. 21–22. Marie Moorefield had also planned to join in presenting herself for ordination but was ill. McDaniel (2011), p. 49 note 34〕 The women and a large part of the congregation walked out of the service in protest.〔Sumner (1987), p. 22〕 By July 1974, as supporters of women’s ordination to the priesthood grew restless, an ordination service was scheduled to ordain qualified women deacons to the priesthood by three retired bishops: Daniel N. Corrigan, retired bishop suffragan of Colorado, Robert L. DeWitt, recently resigned bishop of Pennsylvania, and Edward R. Welles II, retired bishop of West Missouri.〔Hein & Shattuck (2004), p. 141〕〔“Bishops Urged to Reconsider Ordination Plans” (1974)〕 Eleven women deacons presented themselves as ready for ordination to the priesthood, and plans for the service proceeded. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Philadelphia Eleven」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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