You'd think it's "priestess", but the word appears to mostly refer to ancient female conductors of (more pagan) rites. The best I can google is "priest", which doesn't sound right. I've picked up an old project which originally had a nun called Sister Helen running a church. But so far it seems nuns don't actually run churches. So, what would she be called, if we consider she preaches on Sundays in a small church. What's her job called and how would I address her?
When does your story take place? There are female priests and they are simply called "priests." However, this was not always so. I have not done the research into this, so I dont know when it became a thing, but I do know that people are still fighting against women as priests, especially in the Catholic church.
In Anglican churches female priests are called “priests”, or “vicar” or whatever. No feminine title that I’m aware of. I don’t know if monastic priests have special titles. I know in Orthodox churches a monk who is a priest is called “hieromonk” or priest-monk and they do sometimes run parishes. So I guess Sister Helen could be a hieronun. And she would be addressed as Mother Helen
You could try Mother Superior under some circumstance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Superior I mean if a Priest can be called 'Father', then why wouldn't it naturally translate to the female version of 'Mother'? Just spit balling here, but it's an idea to consider is all.
Modern day America. Fictional town. In fact, the story leans a lot on what I think might be called absurdism. In this town the people are pretty relaxed about all sorts of strange occurrences and a female priest really isn't the worst of what they'll be going through. I'm inclined to stay with Sister Helen the nun, but a voice in the back of my head keeps telling me to check for better options. Actually came across an interview with a female priest about this. While she neglected to mention her title in the article, she did say she liked being called "mother", just before she said "but usually they just call me by my name". Gee, thanks, mother.
As your probably know, the only large ecclesial body with women priests in the US is the Episcopal Church, which is part of the Anglican communion. They also have a few female monasteries, and some of the nuns are also priests. I’m not aware of any nuns being parish priests though I don’t think there would be any rule against it. Of course not only are women priests a relative novelty to Anglicanism (1950’s I think?) but monks and nuns arrived to Anglicanism in the 19th century as part of the Anglo-Catholic/ ritualist movement, and they caused was a huge uproar at the time, as one might expect from a basically Protestant church. Nowadays it’s a fact of life but there is still a certain party mentality, with some parishes more comfortable with monasticism than others, and some parishes more comfortable with women priests than others.
Yeah, I read about that earlier. I thought I picked up the year 1917 for the first female priest, but I'm bad with years that are not on album covers. I was kinda surprised to find that there's still sort of a pushback against ordained women though. But I'm going to conveniently latch on to the art where you say "some nuns are also priests". Considering the circumstances, that is all the evidence I need. Thanks!
