Nov. 30, 2026 marks the 50th anniversary of the ordination of women as priests in the Anglican Church of Canada. Dioceses and parishes across Canada are holding events to commemorate the occasion, ranging from themed Sunday Eucharist services to a two-day event in Victoria, which organizers say has drawn 140 registrations so far.
Archbishop Anne Germond, the metropolitan of the ecclesiastical province of Ontario, formerly served as acting primate of the Anglican Church of Canada—the second female primate after Archbishop Linda Nicholls. Germond calls the ordination of women a “significant historic event for our church” and says women’s leadership gifts, though present before 1976, have flourished and enriched the church since that milestone.
She says parents have approached her on parish visits to say their daughters were inspired by seeing her in a leadership role.
“[They] say to me afterwards, ‘Our children now look to women and say, “That could be me one day.”’”Ordained in 2002, Germond says she has been welcomed both at the parish level and in the national church. Still, she says, there are challenges women in ordained ministry face, including the balance between family expectations and a career in the church.
One colleague pointed out to her that in Germond’s diocese of Algoma, only three priests had gone on maternity leave in 50 years.
“What is holding back women with young families?” Germond asks.
Canon Judy Rois says she saw significant challenges when she was first ordained in 1986. Rois is a former executive director of the Anglican Foundation of Canada and an adjunct member of faculty teaching homiletics at the University of Toronto’s Trinity College.
Some people, both men and women, did not take women priests seriously when she was first ordained, Rois says. “Men had those positions for so long, it wasn’t familiar,” she says.
Exacerbating this issue was the limited number of female role models to look to for encouragement in the priesthood, she says. Rois chose to focus on showcasing her competence in the job rather than “put my fist up in the air and demand recognition,” she says. “I just knew these things would take time.”
Today, she says, there are far more role models for young women considering ordination. “Now there are women primates, there are women bishops, there are [women] deans of cathedrals, there’s women with academic appointments,” she says. “Women have proven themselves to be more than competent to do the job of ministry at all levels.”
There are still barriers to overcome, Rois says, such as the subtle inequality in perceived authority between men and women in equal positions and the need for more robust sexual misconduct protection. She hopes for a future where the fact that a priest is a woman is no more remarkable than anything else about them.
Germond and Rois are both slated to participate in 50 Years of the Priesting of Women, a celebration in Victoria that Rois helped organize. Canon Jeannine Friesen, chairperson of the event’s organizing committee and priest in charge of Christ Church Cathedral, Victoria, says the event is an opportunity for reflection on the past and future and networking between female clergy.
As the 50th anniversary of women’s ordination approached, she says, the success of an online event she organized for the 45th, which drew 100 people, spurred interest in an in-person version for the 50th.
Scheduled for Nov. 24-25, the event gathers women clergy from across Canada for panels on subjects including Indigenous ministry, social justice and women who have been ordained 35 years or longer.
Looking back, Friesen says, the anniversary marks a major change for women in the church.
“There’s no young woman or girl who comes into an Anglican church today who isn’t going [to] witness a woman functioning as a priest. And that is a huge difference from 50 years ago.”
