With loud support inside a packed cathedral and some last gasps of protest outside, the Church of England on Saturday ordained its first women priests.
"Is it your will that they should be ordained priests?" Bishop of Bristol Barry Rogerson asked the congregation.The reply was loud and emphatic: "It is!"
The first to be ordained was Angela Berners-Wilson, the senior Anglican chaplain at the University of Bristol.
The 32 women, whose ordination broke 460 years of Anglican tradition and threatened to split the church, hugged each other as Rogerson presented them to an applauding congregation. The women then fanned out through the vast 13th-century nave to greet their supporters.
Most of the church's clergy and laity welcome or at least accept the ordination of women, which 12 Anglican provinces including the U.S. Episcopal Church have already done.
But a minority remains resolutely and vocally opposed, and some have turned to the Roman Catholic Church, which does not ordain women.
The Rev. Marc Cornelis, a Roman Catholic priest from Belgium, joined in the ordination service and offered a prayer that his own church would "overcome ossified and discriminating legislation" and admit women to the priesthood.
Outside Bristol cathedral, a quiet, good-humored group of eight women, calling themselves "the Catholic Women's Ordination," unfurled banners that said "RC women next" and "Women priests yes, misogynists no."
The Rev. Francis Brown, who traveled from northeast England, was a lonely protester outside. "Henceforth `C of E' means Church of Error," he told reporters who clustered around.
The women arrived by bus to face a battalion of photographers and cameramen. Some looked uneasy with their celebrity status.
"It's a historic day for the country and a historic day for the church," said Hazel Roberts, who had come to support the Rev. Brenda Dowie.
"I agree and I think God is having a good time, too," said Maureen Hart, Roberts' companion.
Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, spiritual leader of the Church of England, and Archbishop of York John Habgood, the church's second-ranking priest, issued a call "for all members of the church to exercise God's gifts of generosity, tolerance, courtesy and loving patience with each other in the years that lie ahead."