Schiess, Betty Bone

Episcopal priest.

Betty Bone Schiess graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1945. She received an M.A. from Syracuse University in 1947 and a Master of Divinity in 1972 from the Rochester Center for Theological Studies. In 1972, she was ordained a deacon of the Episcopal Church in the United States, and ordained as a priest in 1974. The ordination in 1974 in Philadelphia of eleven woem by four inactive priests was deemed "irregular" in that it was done without approval of the General Convention of the Episcopal Church. Subsequently, Schiess and her attorney Constance Cook began a law suit against the Bishop of the Diocese of Central New York, Ned Cole, charging him with sex discrimination for refusing to recognize her ordination and preventing her from assuming the position of a parish priest. The suit was discontinued when the General Convention in 1975 approved the ordination of women to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church.

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