Women in Church history

Part of a series on
Christianity and gender
Theology Proverbs 31 1 Timothy 2:12 Biblical womanhood Christian views on marriage Deaconess Jesus's interactions with women List of women in the Bible Ordination of women Paul the Apostle and women Rape in the Hebrew Bible Stay-at-home daughter Women as theological figures Women in the Bible Women in Christianity
Major positions Christian egalitarianism Complementarianism
Other positions Asian feminist theology Biblical patriarchy New feminism Womanist theology
Ordination of women in Christianity Ordination of women in Catholicism Ordination of women in Protestantism (Anglican • Methodist • Presbyterian)
Church and society African and African-American women in Christianity Christianity and homosexuality Fallen woman Transgender people and Christianity Women in Church history
Organizations Feminist Evangelical and Ecumenical Women's Caucus Egalitarian Christians for Biblical Equality Complementarian Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood Patriarchal Vision Forum (defunct)
Theologians and authors (by view) Feminist Anne Eggebroten Grace Jantzen Virginia Ramey Mollenkott Letha Dawson Scanzoni Egalitarian Gilbert Bilezikian Greg Boyd Gordon Fee Kevin Giles Stanley Grenz Kenneth E. Hagin Paul Jewett Roger Nicole Frank Stagg William J. Webb Complementarian Don Carson John MacArthur Susan Foh John Frame Wayne Grudem George W. Knight III Albert Mohler Douglas Moo Jennifer Morse Dorothy Patterson Paige Patterson John Piper Vern Poythress Douglas Wilson
Theologians and authors (by branch) Roman Catholic Hildegard of Bingen Julian of Norwich Catherine of Siena Christine de Pizan Juana Inés de la Cruz Edith Stein Pope John Paul II Phyllis Zagano Eastern Orthodox Frederica Mathewes-Green Protestant April Ulring Larson Catherine Booth Lise-Lotte Rebel Katharine Jefferts Schori
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Women in Church history have played a variety of roles in the life of Christianity—notably as contemplatives, health care givers, educationalists and missionaries. Until recent times, women were generally excluded from episcopal and clerical positions within the certain Christian churches; however, great numbers of women have been influential in the life of the church, from contemporaries of Jesus to subsequent saints, theologians, doctors of the church, missionaries, abbesses, nuns, mystics, founders of religious institutes, military leaders, monarchs and martyrs.

Christianity emerged from within surrounding patriarchal societies that placed men in positions of authority in marriage, society and government, and, whilst the religion restricted membership of the priesthood to males only, in its early centuries it offered women an enhanced social status and quickly found a wide following among women. With the exception of the Eastern Christian churches,^[1] in most denominations, women have been the majority of church attendees since early in the Christian era and into the present.^[2] Later, as religious sisters and nuns, women came to play an important role in Christianity through convents and abbeys and have continued through history to be active—particularly in the establishment of schools, hospitals, nursing homes and monastic settlements. Women constitute the great majority of members of the consecrated life within the Catholic Church, the largest of the Christian churches. In recent decades, ordination of women has become increasingly common in some Protestant churches. Laywomen have also been highly active in the wider life of churches, supporting the community work of parishes.

Within Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, particular place of veneration has been reserved for Mary, the Mother of Jesus, which has kept a model of maternal virtue central to their vision of Christianity.^[3] Marian devotion is however, generally not a feature of Reformed Christianity.