First Woman Ordained in the Anglican Communion Commemorated
Invitation to celebrate the 70 anniversary of the ordination of the Reverend Florence Li Tim-Oi.
Posted January 13, 2014
On January 25th, 2014, there will be a special service to commemorate the 70th year of the ordination of the Rev’d Dr. Florence Li Tim-Oi. The service will be held at the Cathedral Church of St. James in Toronto at 3:00 p.m. All are invited and encouraged to attend as a way of honouring the role of women in the Anglican Communion.
Her commemoration in For All the Saints reads as follows:
At her birth in 1907 Li Tim-Oi’s father called her “Much Beloved.” When she was baptized as a student, Tim-Oi chose the name Florence from “The Lady of the Lamp.” Florence is celebrated worldwide for the witness to Christ that she lived out as the first female priest in the Anglican Communion. In 1931, at the ordination of a deaconess, she heard and responded to the call to ministry. She was made deacon in 1941, and was given charge of the Anglican congregation in the Portuguese colony of Macao, thronged with refugees from war-torn China.
When a priest could no longer travel from Japanese-occupied terri- tory to preside for her at the eucharist, the Bishop of Hong Kong asked her to meet him in Free China, where on January 25, 1944 he ordained her “a priest in the Church of God.” To defuse contro- versy, in 1946 she surrendered her priest’s license, but not her Holy Orders, the knowledge of which carried her through Maoist persecution. For the next 39 years, she served faithfully under very difficult circumstances, particularly after the Communists took over mainland China. In 1983, arrangements were made for her to come to Canada, where she was appointed as an honorary assis- tant at St. John’s Chinese congregation and St. Matthew’s parish in Toronto.
The Anglican Church of Canada had by this time approved the ordination of women to the priesthood, and in 1984, the 40th anniversary of her ordination, Ms. Li was, with great joy and thanksgiving, reinstated as a priest. This event was celebrated not only in Canada but also at Westminster Abbey and at Sheffield in England, even though the Church of England had not yet approved the ordination of women.
From that date until her death in 1992, she exercised her priest- hood with such faithfulness and quiet dignity that she won tremendous respect for herself and increasing support for other women seeking ordination. She was awarded Doctorates of Divinity by General Theological Seminary, New York, and Trinity College, Toronto.
The very quality of Ms. Li’s ministry in China and in Canada, and the grace with which she exercised her priesthood, helped convince many people throughout the Communion and beyond that the Holy Spirit was certainly working in and through women priests. Her contribution to the Church far exceeded the expecta- tions of those involved in her ordination in 1944. She died on February 26, 1992.
For All the Saints is copyright protected © 2004 by the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada. All rights reserved. Reproduced under license from ABC Publishing, Anglican Book Centre, a ministry of the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada, from Anglican Liturgical Library.