Scottish Episcopal Church Votes to Ordain Women as Priests
Episcopal News Service. July 13, 1994 [94129]
James Rosenthal, Director of the Anglican Communion News Service in London
By the required two-thirds margin, the General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church approved legislation on June 16 clearing the way for the ordination of women to the priesthood.
The vote was:
| Clergy | Yes | 66 | No | 12 | (53 required) |
| Laity | Yes | 56 | No | 22 | (53 required) |
| Bishops | Yes | 6 | No | 0 | (4 required) |
After the vote, one woman who had supported the legislation said, "The Holy Spirit is leading us into new insights."
The Most Rev. Richard Holloway, primus (primate) of the Scottish Episcopal Church, described the vote as "historic," but noted that the decision was "late in the day, as far as the Anglican Communion is concerned, though we have been discussing it for over 20 years and voted on it at the synod in 1975." He also called the proposal before the synod "traumatic" and hoped that a way of "transfiguration" would allow the church to experience both continuity and discontinuity in its communal life.
During a sermon in worship service prior to the vote, Archbishop Robin Eames of Ireland encouraged the synod members to think of the Robin Eames of Ireland encouraged the synod members to think of the Anglican Communion as a "jigsaw of diversity... struggling to find what is God's will in a particular time and circumstance." He urged Anglicans to live with the "greatest degree of communion pNo break with traditionossible" when they disagree.
Following the vote, the synod approved a resolution expressing its contention that the decision to ordain women "desires and intends no break with the tradition of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, in which the Scottish Episcopal Church has always professed itself to be." And synod members also reached out to the opponents of the ordination of women, saying that they "will continue for all time to come to have a valued and respected place (within the Scottish Episcopal Church)." The resolution also called for penitence and sadness over the lack of consensus on this matter in the whole church.
No safeguards or financial provisions would be incorporated into the canons, for those opposed to the decision. Bishop Bruce Cameron of Aberdeen encouraged the synod to trust the bishops in the pastoral and personal implications presented by the decision. The bishops would give "individual and compassionate consideration to each specific case," Cameron said.