At the earliest stages of Christianity, the community was remarkable in the ancient world for the prominence of women in the movement, including in positions of leadership. New Testament texts have women acting as apostles and prophets — the two most important roles in the movement’s first generations. Extrabiblical sources confirmed that women served in the important position of “deacon” in the first and second centuries. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will look at the evidence for women in leadership in early Christianity and how these roles were phased out as leadership passed to a hierarchy of bishops drawn from an all-male priesthood.