Church of Scotland celebrates 50 years of female ministers
The Church of Scotland has honoured half a century of women ministers at its annual General Assembly in Edinburgh.
Over 500 women, including almost 200 ministers, marched up The Mound to New College yesterday, to mark the anniversary of the decision to ordain women to the ministry in 1968.
The ruling came years before the Church of England, who only ordained female ministers in 1994.
Rev Heidi Hercus has been the minister of Lochbroom and Ullapool Church for three months now.
She said: “Women were disregarded for far too long, and there is room for us in the church to have a voice.
“We are gaining ground and we are here and we’re not going anywhere.”
Prior to the General Assembly’s vote in 1968, tradition and prejudice meant that the Kirk was reluctant to allow women the right to administer the sacrament.
But a small group of women, including Mary Levison and Margaret Forrester, began petitioning for change in 1963, and within five years the Church of Scotland was forced into reform.
However, a resistance to female ministers continues to exist to this day in some parts of the country.
Rev Bryan Kerr, minister in Greyfriars Parish Church in Lanark, believes this attitude is holding back the church.
He said: “There are still some Kirk sessions who don’t have women elders.
We need to talk to them; we need to remind them that the Church of Scotland is a place where women should be able to serve.”
Today, 194 women make up just over a quarter of Scotland’s 947 ministers.
The first female Moderator of the General Assembly, Alison Elliot, was appointed in 2004.
