INTRODUCTION

Women's involvement in the church and its worship is neither a new nor an uncontroversial phenomenon. Paul exhorted women to keep their heads covered when praying or prophesying (1 Corinthians 11 1-16), and the author of the first letter to Timothy went even further by commanding that women should 'learn in silence and be completely submissive' (1 Timothy 2). But in her groundbreaking book In Memory of Her, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza argued that women were active leaders in the early church - indeed, the New Testament evidences their involvement by its very prohibitions. And the work of scholars such as Karen Jo Torjesen and Teresa Berger has added to the evidence for women's place in any consideration of church, worship, ritual, and sacrament. Yet the standard histories of church, liturgy, and sacrament take little if any notice of women's roles and contributions.