historic settlement patterns never in villages or the countryside as historically with Presbyterian and Methodist churches. Urban parishes average about 300 members; rural parishes, about 150 members with two to six congregations. A steady reduction in parishioners has led to churches closing: one particularly drastic instance is the four parishes of Moose Jaw becoming one in 2003 and occupying the building of St. John's Anglican Church as St. Aidan Anglican Church, of which "[t]he cornerstone was laid in 1909," and "located in downtown Moose Jaw, beside the bus depot at High St. and 1st Ave. East." Churches in small towns seldom have their own clergy unshared with others; parishes tend to have multiple churches sharing clergy. Apart from the conspicuous situation of the four former parishes of Moose Jaw merging and retaining only one, as yet there has not been the drastic closing of multiple churches as by the United Church in Regina and elsewhere. Women Women have always played a significant role in ministry and leadership; when the Anglican Church of Canada finally began ordaining women to the priesthood in 1974 there were already many women deacons occupying the role of parish minister—particularly in aboriginal parishes—although unable to celebrate Holy Communion and perform various other functions reserved to priests, and these women were immediately ordained and became the priests of their parishes. Women have held the posts of archdeacon, regional dean and honorary Canon of the Cathedral, and in 2021 the diocese elected Helen Kennedy as its first woman bishop, making her the first woman to be elected bishop of an Anglican diocese in Saskatchewan. "The English church" In the past the Anglican Church on the prairies had a profile, for better or worse and with greater or lesser legitimacy, of being somewhat exclusive. This was never wholly accurate, though it certainly had ample documentation: At one point Bishop Harding, the Church of England Bishop, was quoted at a meeting — when he was imprudently unaware that local Canadians were hearing his remarks — as observing that English Anglican migrants might be more attractive settlers than Presbyterian and Methodist Canadians, occasioning considerable adverse notice and animosity against the English in the general community. In any case, nowadays parishes in the diocese of Qu'Appelle engage in substantial co-operation with Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and United Church of Canada congregations to maintain a significant Christian presence in the community and