Final hurdle in campaign for women bishops

The Anglican General Synod is expected to approve legislation allowing women to be nominated and chosen for the senior posts “in minutes” when it meets in London.

The move, which comes 20 years after the first women priests were ordained, could see the first female bishop appointed next year.

The move has been welcomed by long-term campaigners for change, who see it as the first step to widening female participation in the CofE.

Hilary Cotton, chairwoman of Women and the Church (Watch), said she would like to see women ultimately make up a third of bishops, around 40 posts, “in order to make a difference”.

The lay Synod member, who has been campaigning for women in the church for more than a decade, said: “Until we get to around a third it doesn’t change the culture, or it is much harder to change it.

“It is not just about having women wearing purple, it is about changing the culture of the church to be more equal.

“It is exciting but I hope that in a few years it will be more normal for women to be appointed bishops.”

The first diocese vacancy to come up after the “canon” law is changed will be Southwell and Nottingham, after the Rt Rev Paul Butler was appointed as Bishop of Durham. It will be followed by Gloucester, Oxford and Newcastle.

Several priests whose names have been suggested as the first female bishops include the Very Rev Vivienne Faull, Dean of York Minster, and the Very Rev June Osborne, Dean of Salisbury Cathedral.

Along with gay marriage, the issue of women bishops has dominated religious debate in recent years.

The first women were ordained in 1994 in the Church of England and they now make up about a third of clergy. The plan to allow them to stand as bishops was derailed by just six votes cast by lay members in November 2012, causing shock and bitter recriminations within the Church of England and prompting threats of an intervention by Parliament.

The General Synod overwhelmingly backed legislation introducing the first women bishops in the Church of England in July and today’s vote will rubber stamp the move.

In October, the Church said that positive discrimination could be used to install “under-represented” female bishops in diocese.

Synod member Christina Rees, who has campaigned for women in the church for 25 years, said women should eventually make up a high proportion of senior roles.

She added: “The stained glass ceiling is finally being shattered.”

Among the favourites to be appointed is the Very Rev Vivienne Faull, 59, Dean of York Minster. She studied at the Queen’s School Chester and St Hilda’s College, Oxford, and was among the first batch of more than 1,000 women ordained in the Church of England.

A former chaplain to Clare College, Cambridge, Ms Faull was the first woman to hold such an appointment at either Oxford or Cambridge universities.

In 2000, she became the first woman appointed to run any English cathedral when she was made provost of Leicester Cathedral.

She was named dean of York Minster in 2012, with a staff of 160 and 600 volunteers to co-ordinate. When she started as a priest, Ms Faull said it was not unknown for a woman to be forbidden to take funerals because as she once explained: “The local population took the view that if a woman led the funeral service, how would you know that you were properly dead?”