Cracking the Purple Ceiling

Delegates to the first General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada in 1893, including New Westminster's Bishop Acton Windyer Sillitoe, would not have believed it if they had been told that 126 years later, a woman would be elected Primate.

But that is what happened Saturday at Christ Church Cathedral in Vancouver, when Bishop Linda Nicholls of Toronto was chosen. And it is significant that second place went to Jane Alexander of Edmonton. Among the five nominees, only the two women carried large blocks of voters through four ballots.

Ms. Nicholls--who now becomes Archbishop Nicholls--is not the first woman to lead a church denomination: in 2006, Katharine Jefferts Schori was elected presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States, and the United Church of Canada has had more than one female chief executive. But Saturday's vote was remarkable for a church which would not even ordain women as priests until 1976.

Not all of Saturday's decisions were as satisfying. Although priests and lay delegates voted by a large majority to endorse the marriage of same sex couples, the motion failed to get the support required from two-thirds of the bishops. This will not prevent dioceses that already sanction the ceremony from continuing to do so, but it was, nonetheless, disheartening.

Still, with the election of a woman as primate and the overwhelming support of most delegates for same-sex marriages, the Anglican Church of Canada continues to move forward in ways the bishops of 1893 never could have imagined.