Hongkonger Florence Li Tim-oi was the world’s first woman ordained to the priesthood in the Anglican Communion. Photo: The Li Tim-Oi Foundation
Hongkonger Florence Li Tim-oi was the world’s first woman ordained to the priesthood in the Anglican Communion. Photo: The Li Tim-Oi Foundation

First woman priest in the Anglican Church, in 1944, Hongkonger Florence Li ministered to wartime refugees in Macau

  • When the Church of England began ordaining women priests in 1994, few people appreciated that the first woman had been ordained 50 years earlier in Hong Kong
  • Li’s ordination in 1944 was hugely controversial, and she soon resigned. In 1971, Hong Kong Anglicans became the first to permit the ordination of women priests

Hongkonger Florence Li Tim-oi was the world’s first woman ordained to the priesthood in the Anglican Communion. Photo: The Li Tim-Oi Foundation
Hongkonger Florence Li Tim-oi was the world’s first woman ordained to the priesthood in the Anglican Communion. Photo: The Li Tim-Oi Foundation
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