The actual rules for identifying, preparing, and ordaining priests are a little bit different in various parts of the Anglican world, but in all cases you must work with (and be guided by) the diocesan bishop.  It’s also pretty safe to assume that you must be active in some Anglican congregation, and that you are known in that congregation, and respected, before you approach the bishop about becoming ordained.

Let me tell you about the practice in my own diocese (the Diocese of Rupert’s Land, in Manitoba, Canada), because I believe it is fairly typical of Anglican practice in other parts of the world.

In this diocese, potential candidates for ordination must be active in an Anglican parish, and before they are even considered for ordination, they must be recommended by a group of that parish’s active leaders.  This is only the beginning of a careful screening process.  The bishop has a team of advisers who will meet with potential candidates and explore each candidate’s spiritual journey, his or her prayer life and sense of vocation.  The question commonly put to a candidate is, “How do you know that your call is to ordination, and not just to a deeply committed Christian life as a lay person?”  The final screening level happens in the form of a weekend regional conference, ¹ involving clergy and laypersons from several dioceses, who will intensively interview a large number candidates from all the participating dioceses.

That is just the screening process.  For some it ends with a recommendation that the candidate not be ordained; for others a letter of recommendation is sent to their bishop.  Note the word “recommendation:” the fact is that the last word always lies with the bishop.

If the bishop agrees to ordain you, he will also lay out what you will need by way of education and training.  Will it be a three year residential degree programme at an accredited seminary?  Will it be local night classes and individual mentorship?  The requirements vary with the candidates, and it is the bishop, working with advisors, who will lay down the requirements for you, based on your circumstances and based upon where you will end up conducting your ministry as a priest.

Oddly enough – and this is true everywhere in the worldwide Anglican Church – you will receive two ordinations, usually a year apart.  One, will be as a deacon.  Deacons have a vocation to proclaim the Gospel, and to mobilize the church for ministry to people in need.  All priests must exercise these gifts, so they are ordained Deacon as a transitional step on their way to becoming priests.  Other people are simply called to be deacons throughout their whole lives, and that is the only ordination that they ever want or need.  A deacon is noticeable when wearing liturgical robes, because his or her stole (a coloured scarf in fine fabrics) is worn across the chest at a 45 degree angle.  On the street, deacons can’t be distinguished from priests because they, like priests, may wear a clergy shirt and collar with their everyday clothing.

The ordination of a priest, when it finally arrives after years of preparation and after further months or years of functioning as a deacon, is a very grand occasion, and deeply emotional for everyone, especially the candidate.  At its centre is a moment when you, the candidate, kneel in front of the bishop, who places his hands upon your head, and prays that you will receive the appropriate gifts of God’s Holy Spirit.  Often, the whole congregation also says or sings a prayer that the Holy Spirit will come upon you.  As well, in most jurisdictions other priests also place their hands on your head at the moment of ordination.  Then your deacon’s stole is removed, and replaced in the fashion of a priest (draped around the neck, the two ends hanging vertically).  A Bible, and the vessels of Holy Communion are symbolically given to you; and, in some places you are also robed in a “chasuble” (see image, left).

This wonderful and solemn moment of ordination is the culmination of a complex discernment process that lasts for many years.  Thus, if you are only thinking about becoming ordained, the most important first step is to become active in your parish church, and well known to your congregation’s leadership.  Then, make an appointment to see the bishop of your diocese, and may the Lord bless you in your journey.

The Episcopal Church of the U.S.A. ² is part of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and as such is a branch of the Anglican church.  Therefore, priests in the Episcopal Church are exactly the same in function and title and office and purpose as Anglican priests in the rest of the Anglican Communion.  There is no difference.

The word “Episcopal” is from the Greek word for “bishop.”  Following the American Revolution in 1776, Anglicans in the United States were anxious not to be indentified with the English.  The word “Anglican,” at its root, is the same as the word “English” (technically, “Anglish”).  So Anglicans in the newly independent states chose a name for their church that described its structure (ie: led by bishops, instead of presbyteries or congregations) rather than its national origin.

This may surprise you, but saying “Hello Reverend,” or “Nice sermon, Reverend” is not always appreciated.  When someone calls me “Reverend,” I usually don’t correct them, because I know they really want to be courteous and respectful, but the fact is that “Reverend,” when used in this way, is simply bad grammar!!!

It’s an adjective, like “ugly,” or “relaxed,” or “honourable.”  You never say, “Hello, honourable!”  For example, the Member of Parliament for my part of Canada is properly called “The Honourable Anita Neville.”  She is, by virtue of her office, granted “honourable” as a title of respect.  But one would never go up to her and say, “Nice speech, Honourable!”  In the same way it is odd and ungrammatical to go up to a priest and say, “Nice sermon, Reverend.”

Let’s suppose we know a priest named Bill Jenkins.  His full name, of course, would be William Jenkins, or William Robert Jenkins.

To address a letter to him, you would write, “the Rev’d Bill Jenkins,” or, more formally, “the Rev’d W.R. Jenkins,” and “Rev. W.R. Jenkins” is quite correct as well, BUT...
...in speaking to him, you would say “Mister Jenkins,” or just call him “Bill” if you know him well.

In some cases you may find that our friend’s congregation calls him “Father Jenkins,” or “Father Bill.”  Certain clergy very much prefer “Father” as a form of address, but it is not universal among Anglican clergy.  In my experience, female clergy almost never wish to be called “Mother Jenkins,” or “Mother Anne.”

Finally, you are never considered rude if you simply ask a priest, “Do you wish to be called ‘Father’?” or, “How would you like to be addressed?”

Two generations ago, you would have heard most people refer to Anglican clergy as “ministers,” and the clergy themselves would have accepted the name completely.  However, if you had been present at the moment that they were ordained, you would have seen that in the ceremony they were officially made “priest” (or perhaps “deacon”).  This has always been so.  Anglican clergy just never used those technical words after ordination, and would settle down comfortably as “ministers.”  This habit began 400 years earlier, when considerable effort was being expended in England to differentiate between the Church of England and the Church of Rome.  Anglicans in those days did not want anyone to think that they were in lockstep with Roman Catholics (and of course Roman Catholics have never stopped publicly declaring their front-line clergy to be “priests”).

But, in the mid-20th Century, people began to realize that “minister” means “servant,” and all Christians are called to serve the poor, and to serve one another in love and forgiveness.  In effect, all are called to be “ministers,” not just the ordained.  Soon we began to see such things as signboards outside churches saying, in the place where the name of the clergy usually goes, “Ministers: all the people of this congregation.”

So now it is widely affirmed in the Anglican church that – although I am ordained – I have been a “minister” ever since I was baptized, but that once I got ordained, I became a “priest.”

Still, if someone insists on saying that I am, or have been, their “minister,” I won’t object, any more than I object when someone calls me “Reverend” (see above).  But I am a priest, and will be until the day I die.

For a much more in-depth exploration of this topic – including an examination of the fundamental role of priests in the church – please see the sermon that I gave at an ordination of priests.  It’s online, here (warning: watch for the sudden twist after the opening paragraphs!).

The short answer is, “Yes.... mostly.  It depends on where you live.”

The Anglican Communion is a worldwide fellowship of independent regions.³  It is organized rather like the British Commonwealth (which shouldn’t be a surprise) and in 2010, for most of those regions, women may be ordained to the priesthood.  A somewhat smaller number of such regions also have women bishops.

The practice of ordaining women is fairly new, and began in the 1970s in Hong Kong,⁴  Canada, the U.S.A., and New Zealand.  In 1978 a regularly convened worldwide meeting of Anglican bishops in Lambeth, England, gave consent to the kind of tension between regions that exists to this day, wherein regions that authorize the ordination of women are permitted to do so, and regions that refuse to authorize it are not compelled to begin.  In 2010, thirty of the world’s forty-four Anglican regions now authorize the practice.

The matter has been very controversial, although in places like Canada where there have been women priests for almost forty years, the controversy has pretty much died down.⁵

There is a thorough and informative article about the ordination of women in the Anglican church, online, at Wikipedia. 
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordination_of_women_in_the_Anglican_Communion.

Yes.

Celibacy – the requirement that clergy be single, and abstain from sexual intercourse – has not been demanded of Anglican clergy since 1559.  However, if you wish to be a monk or a nun within the Anglican Church, that’s another matter.  For these vocations, celibacy is required.⁶

You may apply to become a priest as a married person or as a single person.  You may be single when you get ordained, and later get married.  This is uniformly the case throughout the Anglican Communion.

However, in certain parts of the Anglican Communion, if you are a married priest, and your marriage ends in divorce, you may not be permitted to remarry.  This is not the case in Canada, or in the United States, or in several other jurisdictions, where you will likely come across several clergy who have been divorced and remarried.

Those are the regulations.  But please consider the following:

The congregations served by a priest look to that priest for guidance and inspiration.  The daily life of any ordained person thus becomes as much a “sermon” as the words that they preach in the church.  So the husband or wife of a priest, and the children too, fall under much more scrutiny than do families where work can be separate from private life.  Therefore the spouse of a priest needs to see his or her role as a “vocation,” almost as intense as that of the ordained person whom he or she has married.

This question is part of the most vexing issue facing the worldwide Anglican Communion at the present time.⁷  In a small number of regions, openly gay or lesbian individuals who are in committed same-sex relationships, or who are in legally-sanctioned same-sex marriages, are functioning as priests in good standing.  However these developments – and they are comparatively recent – have caused grave concern throughout the church.  There have been countless meetings, conferences and discussions on this topic – many of them extremely heated – and a lot of ink has been spilled.  There are threats of schism (ie: congregations and even whole regions threatening to split away from the rest of the Anglican church).  There are parts of the worldwide church where being in a sexually active same-sex relationship is taught to be sinful.  There are parts of the world where simply being homosexual is against the law of the land.  But if you are homosexual, you already know that.

The long and short of it is: if you are in a homosexual marriage, be prepared for controversy when you seek ordination.  The first thing to do is find out what policies are being followed in your local diocese.  As I mention in the ordination section above, anyone who wishes to be ordained needs to belong to a church and needs to get in touch with their local bishop in order to launch the ordination process.  That is also the best way of finding out what the status is for married same-sex couples in your region.  Your diocese will have a policy.  In today’s church, it cannot not have a policy!

If you wish to remain anonymous for now, you might even find that policy on your diocese’s website, but if you are thinking of ordination, sooner or later you will have to come out somehow, somewhere.  I suggest beginning with the parish priest in the congregation where you attend worship.  If you are safe and comfortable worshipping in that congregation, you will probably be safe discussing the matter with the priest.

Finally, for all married persons (heterosexual or homosexual) who are considering ordination, the most important person to consult is: your spouse.  He or she will be enormously affected should you become a priest, and he or she needs to be positive and supportive, and ready for the attention that will inevitably come.