A largely unknown women’s rights story, this film introduces you to the trailblazers who challenged the very essence of patriarchy within Christendom and successfully created a blueprint for lasting institutional change.
The Philadelphia Eleven airs Saturday, March 22 at 4 p.m. on WXXI-TV and streams live on the WXXI app.
The film explores the lives of these remarkable women who succeeded in transforming an age-old institution despite the threats to their personal safety and the risk of rejection by the church they loved.
One of the 11 priests featured in the film is Merrill Bittner, who served in the Diocese of Rochester (1973- 1976) where she was an associate at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Webster, New York, and a co-founder of the Rochester Women’s Jail Project.
Exclusion of women from ordination and other church leadership roles made headlines in 2023 when the Southern Baptist Convention banned women from the most senior leadership roles. Today, women in many parts of the Christian church continue to struggle for full inclusion in the sacraments and leadership of the church.
A group of brave women began the fight more than 50 years ago. In 1974, there was a dramatic breakthrough when the so-called ‘stained glass ceiling’ was shattered. At a church in Philadelphia, a group of eleven women were ordained to the Episcopal priesthood in what was seen as a violation of the canons of the Episcopal Church—traditionally, only men were eligible for ordination.
Photo credit: Nikki Bramley, courtesy of Time Travel Productions