The Rev. Alison Cheek, one of the first eleven women ordained in The Episcopal Church, is retiring from parish work according to The Bangor Daily:
Members of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church has invited the community to join them in a farewell celebration of the ministry of the Rev. Alison Cheek on Sunday, July 21.
In 1976, she was featured on the cover of Time Magazine as one of the Women of the Year. Rev. Cheek is one of the first 11 women ordained as Episcopal priests in 1974, and has been living in the midcoast and participating in the life of St. Peter’s since 1996.
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As one of the “Philadelphia Eleven” — female deacons who challenged the interpretations of church canons that prohibited women from ordination — Rev. Cheek was a pioneer in opening the way for the Episcopal Church’s reinterpretation and change in the canons in 1976 to allow for the ordination of women.