Rev. Florence Li Tim-Oi -- First Woman Ordained in Anglican Communion 25 January 1944

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Reverend Florence Li Tim-Oi

Reverend Florence Li Tim-Oi

Florence Li Tim-Oi (5 May 1907 – 26 February 1992) was the first woman to be ordained to the priesthood in the Anglican Communion. This happened on 25 January 1944 in Macau.

When the Church of England began ordaining women priests in March 1994, few people appreciated that the first Anglican woman priest in the Anglican Communion had been ordained 50 years earlier on January 25, 1944 when Florence Li Tim Oi’s priesthood was recognised by Bishop Ronald Hall in war torn Macao.  Her story bears remarkable similarity to that of Roman Catholic Ludmila Javorova who was clandestinely ordained in Soviet occupied Czechoslovakia’s underground Church by Bishop Felix Davidek in 1970.

Li Tim-Oi was born in the fishing village of Aberbeen, Hong Kong during a time when baby boys were preferred. Her parents, forward looking people, were determined to challenge prejudice against girls. Their chosen name for their child means much beloved daughter.

As a young student, Li Tim-Oi joined the Anglican Church. She chose the name Florence at her baptism after Florence Nightingale, the famous 19th century English nurse who she knew as the Lady of the Lamp.

Li Tim-Oi, her mother, Bishop Mok, her father, Archdeacon Lee Kow Yan after her ordination as Deacon by at St John’s Cathedral Hong Kong, Ascension Day 22 May 1941

Li Tim-Oi, her mother, Bishop Mok, her father, Archdeacon Lee Kow Yan after her ordination as Deacon by at St John’s Cathedral Hong Kong, Ascension Day 22 May 1941

Tim-Oi began studies at Union Theological College in Canton. When she attended the ordination of a woman deacon, the presiding Chinese minister asked, ‘Here is an Englishwoman who is offering herself to serve the Church. Might there also be a Chinese woman who feels called by God to serve as a deacon?’ Tim-Oi prayed and asked, 'God would you like to send me?'

Her prayer was answered. She was ordained a deacon on Ascension Day 1941. She was given charge of an Anglican congregation in the Portuguese colony of Macao which at the time was overflowing with refugees from war-torn China.  Though she was not authorized to celebrate the Eucharist (a priest had to travel from Hong Kong for this) Tim-Oi ministered on a full time basis. She tended to the physical and spiritual needs of her congregation and its neighbors.  She baptized, married and buried faithful.  She gave counsel and friendship to the grieving, organised food for the hungry and kept hope and faith alive among the people desperately struggling during time of war.

Hong Kong Bishop Raymond Hall approached his assignments with a sense of practicality. The Japanese occupation of Hong Kong and of parts of China and World War II made it impossible for Anglican priests to get to neutral Macau. When a priest could no longer travel to Macau to preside at periodic celebrations of the eucharist, Hall asked Tim-Oi to meet him in unoccupied territory in Free China where on 25 January 1944 he ordained her a priest. [1] He knew this was a momentous and controversial step. He knew there would eventually be resistance to her service as a priest. In his mind, he resolved that he was not ordaining Florence Li Tim-Oi but instead merely confirming what he and many others witnessed - that Tim-Oi had the gift of priestly ministry and that she was already ordained by God for this service.  In a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, Hall explained the extraordinary act he was about to do:

I have three Chinese priests in Hong Kong but they cannot now get permission to go to Macao. Her work has been remarkably successful.  My judgment is that it is only exceptional women who can do this kind of work.  But we are going to have such exceptional women in China and such exceptional need.  Moreover, working as a minister in charge of a congregation, Deaconess Li has developed as a man-pastor develops and has none of that frustrated fussiness that is noticeable in women who having the pastoral charisma are denied full exercise in the ministry of the church. 

Hall continued, ‘I'm not an advocate for the ordination of women. I am, however, determined that no prejudices should prevent the congregations committed to my care having the sacraments of the Church.’ [2] After the war, controversy erupted over her priestly ordination. A woman priest? Tim-Oi was asked to relinquish her priest's license. Concerned for the difficulties her status might cause Bishop Hall, and because she viewed his position to be more more important than her own, she agreed to surrender her license. [3] While she ceased functioning as a priest, she never renounced her Holy Orders. She continued to serve another congregation, this time in Hepu, until the rise of Communism.

Reverend Florence Li Tim-Oi

Reverend Florence Li Tim-Oi

Under Maoist persecution, churches in China were closed. The knowledge of her priesthood carried her through Maoist persecution. The Red Guards made her cut up her vestments with scissors and humiliated her in other ways. She was sent for ‘re-education.’ Along with other victims of China’s Cultural Revolution, she lived in obscurity and hardship for more than 30 years. She entered what she says was a very dark period of her life. She contemplated suicide. Then, she says, she was ‘touched by the Holy Spirit.’ She heard God speak to her and say, ‘Are you a wise woman? You are a priest!’ She knew then that God was with her and would support her always, through all of her adversity. She was sent to work on a farm where part of her assignment was to care for chickens. Her home was raided several times and her possessions taken away. Many years later, she was asked how she sustained her faith during this time, and she answered, ‘I just went up the mountain and nobody knew.’ Eventually she was able to retire from the farm. When the curtain eventually lifted, she was granted permission near the end of her life to leave China.

In 1983, arrangements were made for her to come to Canada where she was appointed as an honorary assistant 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. In 1984 -- the 40th anniversary of her ordination-- Florence Li Tim-Oi 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 priesthood with faithfulness and quiet dignity.  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 through the communion and beyond that the Holy Spirit was certainly working in and through women priests. Her contribution to the church far exceeded the expectations of those involved in her ordination in 1944. She continued to serve at the Anglican Cathedral in Toronto for several years before her death in 1992.

She died on 26 February 1992 in Toronto and is buried there.

In 2003, the Episcopal Church fixed 24 January as her feast day in Lesser Feasts and Fasts, based on the eve of the anniversary of her ordination. In 2007, the Anglican Communion celebrated the centennial of her birth. [4] In 2018, she was made a permanent part of the Episcopal Church’s calendar of saints. [5] She is memorialized in the calendar of the Anglican Church of Canada with a feast day on February 26. Her archives are held in the Lusi Wong Library at Renison University College, the Anglican college at the University of Waterloo.

The Li Tim-Oi Foundation has now been set up in her memory and is a charity helping women in the Two-Thirds World train for ministry in their own countries.

- Therese Koturbash
Therese Koturbash, BA, LLB, GDCL served as Canadian Delegate to Women’s Ordination Worldwide from 2008 to 2013. For all five of those years, she was elected member of WOW's four person International Leadership Circle. She has also been the National Coordinator of Canada's Catholic Network for Women's Equality. Today, Therese serves on WOW’s Communications Team and is a volunteer with WOW member group, Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research. Her paid work is as a family attorney.

Notes:

  1. Li, Florence Tim Oi (1996). Raindrops of my Life. Toronto: Anglican Book Centre. pp. 20–21.

  2. Rose, Mavis (1996). Freedom From Sanctified Sexism – Women Transforming the Church. Queensland, Australia: Allira Publications. pp. 129–149.

  3. "Li Tim-Oi's Story". www.ittakesonewoman.org

  4. Schjonberg, Mary Frances (4 May 2007). "Communion to celebrate first woman priest Li Tim-Oi on anniversary of birth | Episcopal Church". The Episcopal Church.

  5.  Frances, Mary. "Convention makes Thurgood Marshall, Pauli Murray, Florence Li Tim-Oi permanent saints of the church – Episcopal News Service". Episcopalnewsservice.org

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