The story of the Episcopal Women's Caucus 1971-1996
with an Update 1996 to 2003
The year 1970 marked the beginning of tumultuous times in the Episcopal church. Women were seated for the
first time as deputies to the General Convention, overcoming more than fifty years of resistance by that all-male
body. That was also the convention which declared that deaconesses could be translated into deacons, opening the
door to women as members of the clergy. Admitting women into the priesthood, however, was not to be; the
motion failed on a vote by orders in the House of Deputies and never made it to the House of Bishops.
One year later, on October 30, 1971, the Episcopal Women's Caucus came into being. An association of lay
and clergy women interested in broadening the role of women at all levels of church life, the Caucus grew out of a
meeting of Episcopal women interested in professional ministry in the church. Just prior to this gathering at
Virginia Seminary, the House of Bishops was meeting in the Pocono Mountains and had voted to refer the question
of the ordination of women to yet another study committee. Over the years the bishops had commissioned, received
and apparently forgotten a whole series of studies, including a "blue ribbon" one done as recently as 1967.
Shocked and dismayed by this latest evasion of the issue on the part of the House of Bishops, the gathering at
the seminary sent a letter to Bishop Hines signed by all 60 women present expressing their disappointment and
informing him that none of them would serve on such a committee if asked. They further stated that they would
urge other women not to serve, as the time for study was long past. In signing the letter, the group constituted itself
as the Episcopal Women's Caucus, pledged itself to organize women in various regions of the country and elected a
representative steering committee. They also requested funds from the Board for Theological Education in order to
hold regional conferences involving local lay women and men.
Grant money was received from the BTE, and conferences were held in Alexandria, New York City, Chicago,
Cambridge and St. Louis. An enlarged steering committee, including women drawn from the conferences, met in
Chicago in May of 1972 and agreed upon a statement of purpose for the Caucus.
"The Episcopal Womens Caucus is a national group - lay women, clergy, seminarians and professional
church workers - formed to actualize the full participation of women at all levels of ministry and decision making
in the Church." It was also agreed that although the ordination of women to the priesthood was not the only goal, it
was the most immediate one, and the approach of the 1973 General Convention made it a high priority. A
newsletter was sent out suggesting ways in which local caucuses could urge their dioceses to memorialize the
upcoming Louisville convention in favor of full ordination for women. To promote this goal, regional members of
the steering committee held conferences in their areas, and dioceses including Massachusetts, New York,
Washington, Newark, Delaware, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland went on record as either supporting
ordination or mandating study "to promote and prepare for" the ordination of women.
Letters were sent to diocesan chapters urging them to promote this goal, and coalitions were formed with
groups such as Priests for the Ministry of the Church (which later became Priests for the Ordination of Women).
Eventually EWC and POW joined forces to create the National Coalition for the Ordination of Women to the
Priesthood, a coalition of bishops, priests, deacons and lay people working for a vote of approval at the Louisville
General Convention. Their efforts were not successful; the vote in the House of Deputies was even more
profoundly anti-women in 1973 (in a vote-by-orders of the clergy) than it had been in 1970. The belief that all the
bishops and deputies needed to know was the strength of the "call" of those women seminarians and deacons
aspiring to the priesthood proved ill-founded, and the failure to pass a change in the canons was devastating to all
who had worked for change. Sexism was little understood in those days.
Following the failure at Louisville, two vocational conferences were held for women in professional ministry
in November of 1973, one in the east and the other in the west. It was the consensus of both meetings that the
Episcopal Women's Caucus should continue its work. A new steering committee was elected at a special meeting
held in New York in February 1974; members were Ellen Biggs, California; Patricia Handloss, Missouri; Helen
Havens, Texas; Jeannette Piccard, Minnesota; Blanche Powell, Virginia; Barbara Schlachter, New York; Frances