A story from the Rochester Diocese Rt Revd

A story from the Rochester Diocese Rt. Revd Anthony Thorold Bishop of Rochester 1877 -1891 Deaconess Isabella Gilmore Head Deaconess of Rochester Deaconess House

The first Deaconesses in the Church of England • 1862 – The Bishop of London had visited Kaiserwerth Deacon House in Germany. • The Church of England borrowed the idea from German Lutherans and copied the way of working • Mostly Works of Charity not working in churches e. g nursing

The First Deaconesses – not clergy but the beginning of the story • From 1841 Religious Sisters in the Anglican Church but not ordained • The first was Deaconess Elizabeth Ferard London Diocese in 1862 Deaconesses Living in Community Sent out to work Returned to deaconess house

Bishop Thorold & Isabella see a different way of training Rt Revd Anthony Thorold Bishop of Rochester 1877 -1891 Deaconess Isabella Gilmore Head Deaconess of Rochester Deaconess House

From 1887 onwards in the Rochester Diocese Deaconesses Training in the Deaconess House Sent to work in parishes

“ The position the Deaconess holds in this Diocese is the same as a that of a Deacon, she is licensed to the parish, receives her own stipend, and is entirely independent of the Head Deaconess, but is responsible to her Vicar and her Bishop. ”

From 1887 onwards …… • Isabella Gilmore’s training methods were copied and many other Diocesan Houses were set up in the same way and in other countries • This led to the women trained in Rochester being more like male deacons because they worked under the authority of the Bishop and a Parish Priest in parishes • Different from Religious sisters and community based deaconesses who worked for and belonged to a Community • Just as there was Deacon, Priest and Deacon Isabella Gilmore and Bishop Thorold saw the revived Diaconate as an order of Ministry for women • Deaconesses where never large in numbers but were much appreciated in parishes. They took increasingly bigger roles in the liturgy. In the absence of a priest they could baptize.

100 years Later! Clerical Ordination • 1987 - It took another 100 years for the Church of England’s General Synod to decide to ordain women – as deacons • 1994 – another 7 years to ordain women as priests • 2015 – and another 21 years to ordain women as Bishops

What happened to training and women? • From 1970’s Deaconess Houses began to be closed down altogether and women and men trained together. But women were more likely to train on local schemes than residentially • Women are more likely to be older at the start of training • Women are more likely to be self supporting

From - Statistics for Mission: 2012. Ministry Archbishops’, Council