Disciple: The 50th Anniversary of the Philadelphia 11

On July 29, 1974, 11 women stood before bishops not their own in the sanctuary of Philadelphia’s George W. South Memorial Church of the Advocate and made their ordination vows in front of a congregation of 2,000 worshipers. All of the women were already ordained to the diaconate in their respective dioceses, but this sacred ceremony of ordination to the priesthood would be declared “irregular” by the House of Bishops a few weeks later.

The women, who would come to be known as the Philadelphia 11, were challenging a tradition of male-only priesthood. Even though the canons of The Episcopal Church did not specifically forbid women from being priests, they did (and still do) require that a person receive the consent of their diocese’s standing committee before ordination to the priesthood. Ten of the women did not have the necessary consents; the 11th was refused ordination by her bishop, even though she had received the standing committee’s approval. Over the objections of Presiding Bishop John Allin, the bishop of Pennsylvania, the eight bishops with authority over the women and an assortment of priests who dissented during the ceremony, the Rev. Merrill Bittner, the Rev. Alla Bozarth-Campbell, the Rev. Alison Cheek, the Rev. Emily Hewitt, the Rev. Carter Heyward, the Rev. Suzanne Hiatt, the Rev. Marie Moorefield, the Rev. Jeannette Piccard, the Rev. Betty Schiess, the Rev. Katrina Swanson and the Rev. Nancy Wittig made their vows.

[Image: The Rev. Carter Heyward distributes communion during her ordination ceremony on July 29, 1974. From the Charlotte Observer]

The presiding bishop immediately called a special session of the House of Bishops, and on August 15, by a vote of 129 to 9, with 8 abstentions, the bishops approved a resolution “that the necessary conditions for valid ordination to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church were not fulfilled.” In essence, in the eyes of the church, the priestly ordinations were invalid, and the women remained deacons.

The fallout continued. Members of the Philadelphia 11 received sexist criticism and death threats. One received a package containing a length of fishing line and a note encouraging her to hang herself. In protest to the bishops’ decision, prominent lay leader and preacher at the ordination Dr. Charles V. Willie resigned as vice president of the House of Deputies and as a member of Executive Council. The ordaining bishops—Bishop Daniel Corrigan, Bishop Robert L. DeWitt and Bishop Edward R. Welles II (also the father of ordinand Katrina Swanson)—were censured by the House of Bishops.

In September 1976, the 65th General Convention approved the ordination of women to the priesthood and episcopate by adding a new section to the church’s ordination canons that read: “The provisions of these canons for the admission of Candidates, and for the Ordination to the three Orders: Bishops, Priests and Deacons shall be equally applicable to men and women.”

But the Philadelphia 11—and women’s ordination as a whole—remained in limbo. The House of Bishops initially ruled the Philadelphia 11 would need to be reordained, calling the ordinations “conditional,” but, once it became clear the priests would refuse reordination, the next day the bishops voted unanimously for a “completion” ceremony that would not include the laying on of hands. Then, during its meeting in October 1977, the House of Bishops adopted “A Statement of Conscience,” which said, “No Bishop, Priest, or Lay Person should be coerced or penalized in any manner, nor suffer any canonical disabilities as a result of his or her conscientious objection to or support of the sixty-fifth General Convention’s actions with regard to the ordination of women to the priesthood or episcopate.”

Because the House of Deputies never approved it, the statement held no canonical authority, but a few bishops and dioceses used it to prevent the ordination of women to the priesthood for the next 33 years. The last holdout, the Diocese of Quincy (Illinois), ordained the Rev. Margaret Lee on October 16, 2010.

LIFETIMES OF MINISTRY

In addition to their historic importance as the first women priests ordained in The Episcopal Church, the Philadelphia 11 also impacted their communities through remarkable individual lives of service.

The Rev. Merrill Bittner served in the Diocese of Rochester from 1973 to 1976, including as an associate at Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Webster, New York. She worked as a hospital chaplain and served at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Rumford, Maine from 2001 through 2006.

The Rev. Alla Bozarth founded Wisdom House, a Minneapolis-based interfaith spirituality center. In 1985, she returned to her native Oregon and continued her ministry with Wisdom House West. She also has written two books about grief.

The Rev. Alison Cheek served at St. Stephen’s and Incarnation Episcopal Church, Washington, D.C., and Trinity Memorial Church, Philadelphia, before studying at the Washington Institute of Pastoral Psychotherapy and beginning her own counseling practice. She later joined the faculty of Episcopal Divinity School as director of feminist liberation theology studies. She died in 2019.

The Rev. Emily Hewitt worked for a short time at Andover Newton Theology School as an assistant professor of religion and education before earning a law degree from Harvard. She retired in 2013 as chief judge of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. In 1987 she won the U.S. National Race Walking medal.

The Rev. Carter Heyward taught at Episcopal Divinity School from 1975 through 2005 and authored many books and scholarly papers. After retirement she moved back to her native North Carolina and now runs and teaches at a therapeutic horseback riding center.

The Rev. Suzanne Hiatt taught on the faculty of Episcopal Divinity School from 1975 until her retirement in 1999. She authored many books and scholarly papers. She died in 2002.

The Rev. Marie Moorefield Fleischer left The Episcopal Church in 1975 and became a United Methodist minister, serving as a chaplain in the Methodist healthcare system. She was recognized as an Episcopal priest in 1985 and served in parishes and diocesan offices in Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia and Western New York. She served as canon to the ordinary in the Diocese of North Carolina from 2001 through 2006.

The Rev. Jeannette Piccard, who was ordained at the age of 79, served as an unpaid assistant at her home parish of St. Philip’s, Minneapolis. She was a pioneering aviator and the first woman licensed as a hot air balloon pilot in the United States. As the first woman to pilot a stratosphere-capable balloon to that height, she has been called “the first woman in space” and served as a consultant to NASA. She died in 1981.

The Rev. Betty Schiess served as the executive director of the Mizpah Educational and Cultural Center for the Aging in Syracuse, New York, from 1973 through 1984. She later served in various campus ministry and parish positions in New York. She died in 2017.

The Rev. Katrina Swanson was hired by St. Stephen’s, a poor parish in St. Louis, Missouri, as an assistant in 1975 for $1 per year. In 1978, she became the first woman rector in the tri-state New York metro area when she was hired by St. John’s, Union City, New Jersey, where she served until retiring in 1995. She died in 2005.

The Rev. Nancy Hatch Wittig served parishes in the Diocese of Newark before a 20-year term as rector of the Church of St. Andrew in the Fields, Philadelphia. She moved to Ohio after retirement and is an assistant at St. Peter’s, Lakewood.