Origin from 1944
On 25 January 1944, Bishop Ronald Hall of the Diocese of Victoria, Hong Kong, ordained Li Tim-Oi a priest at Shaoqing, also spelled Zhaoqing, in unoccupied Guangdong province, southern China, making her the first woman ordained to the priesthood in the Anglican Communion, fifty six years after the 1888 Lambeth Conference adopted the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, already recorded here, and sixty five years before traditionalists founded the Anglican Church in North America in 2009, also recorded here. Japan's occupation of Hong Kong and coastal China had cut off most ordained clergy from the scattered Anglican congregations of unoccupied Free China; Hall had already ordained Li a deaconess in Macau in May 1941, and from Easter 1942 she had presided at the Eucharist there without being a priest, an arrangement Hall defended to the Archbishop of Canterbury as necessary so that congregations in his care would not go without the sacraments. Li traveled through occupied territory to the unoccupied town of Xinxing to meet Hall, and the two continued together to Shaoqing for the ordination itself. The wartime decision proved deeply controversial once peacetime communication with Canterbury resumed, and Li voluntarily surrendered her license to officiate as a priest in 1946 rather than divide the Church, though she never renounced her orders. Hall consistently maintained the ordination had been valid. Thirty years passed before the Diocese of Hong Kong and Macau ordained two more women priests in 1971 and the wider Anglican Communion began following, but Li Tim-Oi's 1944 ordination stands as the Communion's first, later commemorated with her own feast day on Anglican calendars around the world.
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Dates
Start YearSourced to the subject's own account StatusSourced to the subject's own accountEstablished marks Bishop Ronald Hall's ordination of Li Tim-Oi as a priest on 25 January 1944, the first ordination of a woman to the priesthood in the Anglican Communion, a specific dated milestone between the 1888 Lambeth Conference adopting the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral already recorded here and traditionalists founding the Anglican Church in North America over the ordination of women in 2009 also recorded here. Li voluntarily surrendered her license to officiate in 1946 amid controversy without renouncing her orders, and thirty years passed before other women were ordained priest in the Communion. Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Americas directly: "On 25 January 1944, Bishop Ronald Hall of the Diocese of Victoria, Hong Kong, ordained Li Tim-Oi a priest at Shaoqing, also spelled Zhaoqing, in unoccupied Guangdong province, southern China, making..."
This source names Anglican Communion directly: "ordained to the priesthood in the Anglican Communion, fifty six years after the 1888 Lambeth Conference adopted the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, already recorded here, and sixty five years before..."
This source names Hong Kong directly: "Hall of the Diocese of Victoria, Hong Kong, ordained Li Tim-Oi a priest at Shaoqing, also spelled Zhaoqing, in unoccupied Guangdong province, southern China, making her the first woman ordained to..."
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Adds a specific, dated milestone in Anglican history between the 1888 Lambeth Conference adopting the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral and traditionalists founding the Anglican Church in North America over the ordination of women in 2009, both already recorded here: Bishop Ronald Hall's ordination of Li Tim-Oi as a priest on 25 January 1944, the Anglican Communion's first ordination of a woman to the priesthood.
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