Supported by: Miles Briggs*, Bill Bowman*, Tom Mason*, Murdo Fraser*, Margaret Mitchell*, Alexander Burnett*, Liz Smith*, Liam Kerr*, Gordon Lindhurst*, Jeremy Balfour*, Michelle Ballantyne*, David Torrance*, Alexander Stewart*, Colin Beattie*, Bill Kidd*, Alison Harris*, Fulton MacGregor* *S5M-12276 Kenneth Gibson: 50 Years Since the Ordination of Women in Scotland That — the Parliament celebrates the 50th anniversary of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland voting in favour of the ordination of women to ministry of word and sacrament, which will take place on 22 May 2018; understands that, while women were commissioned as deacons from 1888 and allowed to preach from 1949, serious debate on the ordination of women as ministers did not begin until 1963 when Mary Levison petitioned the General Assembly; appreciates that the first woman to be ordained as a minister in the Church of Scotland was the Reverend Catherine McConnachie by the Presbytery of Aberdeen in 1969, and the first woman ordained and inducted as a parish minister was the Reverend Euphemia HC Irvine in 1972; recognises that this year will also see the ordination of the 200th female minister and that, of 58 people in training, 27 are women, which represents a significant departure from the prejudice and misogyny that historically prevented women of faith from joining the clergy, and hopes and believes that the Church of Scotland will continue to take an inclusive approach to training, recruitment and appointments to its General Assembly.