Mary Magdalene service celebrates a ministry of women in the church

BOARDMAN -- St. James' Episcopal Church, 7640 Glenwood Ave., will be the site Friday for a celebration of the ministry and place of St. Mary Magdalene in the early church.
The topic of much recent interest generated by the best-selling book "The Da Vinci Code," Mary Magdalene's actual role in early church history has been a hot topic in early Christian studies.
The Rev. Kelly Marshall, rector of St. James' Church, participated in a major Mary Magdalene study as part of his graduate work in theology at Duquesne University in the early 1980s, and found a St. Mary Magdalene Chapel at St. James when he arrived here in late 2003.
On Friday -- the Feast Day of Mary Magdalene -- St. James will celebrate a Festival Eucharist in her honor at 7 p.m. The Rev. Mary Carson, assistant to the Bishop for Ministry Development in the Episcopal Diocese of Ohio, will preach the sermon, and the combined Choirs of St. James and St. Augustine's Episcopal Church will sing.
A panel discussion on the topic "The Ministry of Women in Church and Community" will follow. Panelists in addition to Rev. Carson are Priscilla Hayes (St. John's Episcopal Church), Donna Wynn (St. Augustine), and Kathy Scheel and Mary Onley-Linder, (St. James vestry members).
All are invited to join in this celebration of the ministry of women in the church.