Barbara Darling, Australia’s second female Anglican bishop, has died in Melbourne after suffering from a stroke at the age of 67.
Bishop Darling, who had recently retired, was the first female to be appointed as bishop in Melbourne in April 2008, just eight days after Kay Goldsworthy was appointed to the position in Perth.
Her appointment came after the church’s highest legal authority, the Appellate Tribunal, ruled there was nothing in the church’s constitution to prevent the consecration of a woman priest as a bishop in September 2007.