History will be made this weekend as the first female bishop to serve in a British church takes office. However the Church of England continues to argue about how and when women should be introduced to the episcopate, while the Roman Catholic Church maintains that only men can serve as priests.
So it has been left to the Lutheran Church in Great Britain, which has just a few thousand worshippers, to become the first to take the radical step.
The Rev Jana Jeruma-Grinberga, whose parents were Latvian refugees but who was born in England, will be consecrated as the church's first female bishop on Saturday at a ceremony in the City of London.
She will take over from the Rt Rev Walter Jagucki as the head of the Lutheran Church in Great Britain, one of 10 Lutheran groups based in the country, and the service will be witnessed by fellow worshippers from around the world.
Her pioneering appointment has been welcomed by Christina Rees, the chairman of Women and the Church, who is a leading campaigner in the struggle to get female bishops installed in Anglican dioceses.
"It's wonderful news and she is certainly making history," she told me.
"This is really significant, first of all because the Church of England is in communion with the Lutheran Church - we are sister churches."
She added that the timing could not be better, as the governing body of the Church of England, the General Synod, is to debate the introduction of female bishops next month.
The new bishop, who was born in London in 1953, is the daughter of a Latvian composer, Alberts Jerums. She studied biochemistry at University College London and trained to become a nurse, but then felt a calling to the priesthood and was ordained in 1997.
Lutherans, of whom there are an estimated 75 million worldwide, follow the teachings of Martin Luther, the 16th century German reformer. They believe in the supreme authority of the Bible, and hold that everyone is born sinful and can only be saved by God's grace.
A spokesman for the Lutherans said in a statement: "The Lutheran Church in Great Britain will consecrate its first woman bishop, the Rt Rev Jana Jeruma-Grinberga, on Saturday 17th January 2009, in the historic Wren church of St Anne & St Agnes on Gresham Street, in the City of London.
"Her predecessor, the Rt Rev Walter Jagucki, will preside at the service, and bishops and other clergy from Nordic and European Lutheran churches will participate in the consecration."
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(Source: ACP)