Summary:
The first woman priest is expected be anointed this month," head of the CNI Chhotanagpur diocese bishop B B Baskey told TOI. "Though other dioceses of the CNI Church in the country have long ago anointed women as priests, giving them the right to conduct church services, the Chhotanagpur diocese had so far refrained from following suit. RANCHI: For the first time since its inception 128 years ago, the Chhotanagpur diocese of the Church of North India CNI ) has decided to ordain women as priests, breaking the church's age-old tradition of a men-only clergy. However, we have now decided to break the more-than-century-old tradition and ordain women as priests. Bishop Baskey heads 52 parishes of CNI, the dominant Protestant denomination in northern India, spread over Jharkhand and Odisha.The Gossner Evangelical Lutheran Church, the first church set up at Chhotanagpur in Ranchi in 1845 was also the first in the region to ordain three women as priests in 1995..