MACY, GARY: The Hidden History of Women's Ordination

Female Clergy in the Medieval West

"The Hidden History of Women’s Ordination: Female Clergy in the Medieval West offers valuable historical background for the ongoing debate about women’s ordination. Theologian and historian Gary Macy documents and explains references to the ordination of women that exist in papal and church documents in the first millennium of Christianity.

As a radical church reform that occurred during the 11th and 12th centuries took hold, it changed the concept of ordination, leaving women behind. But prior to that, sufficient evidence exists to warrant the claim that women were considered to be ordained ministers in the Western church.

Macy writes that women were not ordained as ordination would come to be understood from the 12th century on, “that is, as receiving a personal irrevocable power to serve at the altar.” Rather, he writes, “They were commissioned for particular roles in particular communities.” The important point to be made, however, is that so were men."

- National Catholic Reporter

MADIGAN & OSIEK: Ordained Women in the Early Church

A Documentary History

JHU Press, 2005

220 pages

Church History, Early Church, Women, Women's Ordination

"In a time when the ordination of women is an ongoing and passionate debate, the study of women's ministry in the early church is a timely and significant one. There is much evidence from documents, doctrine, and artifacts that supports the acceptance of women as presbyters and deacons in the early church. While this evidence has been published previously, it has never before appeared in one complete English-language collection. With this book, church historians Kevin Madigan and Carolyn Osiek present fully translated literary, epigraphical, and canonical references to women in early church offices. Through these documents, Madigan and Osiek seek to understand who these women were and how they related to and were received by, the church through the sixth century. They chart women's participation in church office and their eventual exclusion from its leadership roles. The editors introduce each document with a detailed headnote that contextualizes the text and discusses specific issues of interpretation and meaning. They also provide bibliographical notes and cross-reference original texts. Madigan and Osiek assemble relevant material from both Western and Eastern Christendom."