Editor's note: this is the last article in a five-part series honoring Ohio Women's History Week.

Standing over a grave to give a funeral sermon for a child born outside of marriage, a sickening feeling crept up in Antoinette Brown Blackwell, the first woman to be ordained a Protestant minister.

In 1854 it was a custom of the orthodox Protestant Church to interpret such a child's death as God's punishment to the mother for having a child outside of marriage.

Brown was struggling to keep her faith.

"Suddenly I found that the whole groundwork of my faith had dropped away from me. I found myself believing in absolutely nothing," she wrote in her memoirs, according to a biography written by Elizabeth Cazden.

In July of 1854, after more than a decade of fighting to become a minister, Brown left the church where she had preached for a year.

Brown dedicated her life to a feminist exploration of Christian theology. But her internal struggle went deeper. She agonized over her work to bring women into the church, an institution that many feminists still regard as an enemy of women's empowerment.

Brown's struggle to link the women's rights movement with religion estranged her from people like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who were suspicious of the Church.

Born in New York, Brown moved to Ohio in 1846 to study theology at Oberlin College, which was a hotbed of anti-slavery sentiment.

"I felt unwilling to go to most of our Seminaries where the great object is to make mere butterflies of females," she wrote in a letter.

Judith Kraig, a United Methodist Church bishop in Columbus, was ordained in the early 1970s. She said she faces little opposition today. But like Brown, she is sometimes challenged by feminists who feel the church is corrupt and against women's rights.

Kraig looks to Brown's experience and ideas for inspiration.

"She is my mother in the faith," she said. "Anytime there is a first, it is a light on the horizon of the past, a marker for us to look to."

But while doors in some churches have opened for women leaders, others have remained locked.

Nearly 150 years after Brown's passion led her to the pulpit, Sister Kathy Wiesneski still dreams of becoming a priest. The Catholic Church does not ordain women to be priests. She is a nun and campus minister at Christ the King University Parish in Athens.

One of Wiesneski's theology professors told her to be patient and to hold onto her dream.

"He told me to wait," Wiesneski said. "He said, 'Come when you can bring your own gifts; now isn't the time.' It gave me hope."

One of Wiesneski's friends was less patient. Sacrificing her faith, she left the Catholic Church and was ordained a protestant minister. She asked Wiesneski to leave with her, but Wiesneski refused.

But the Catholic Church is changing - slowly. Wiesneski's niece is an alter server, a position that was reserved for boys when Wiesmeski was growing up. And the language of sermons is more inclusive. Priests who would bless "sons of God," for example, have added "daughters" to the phrase.

One reason for these changes is the feminization of theology.

The associate pastor at the First United Methodist Church in Athens is a woman. As Brown did 150 years ago, Barbara Jean Carriere, has sought to expand the influence of women on Christian theology.

Most mainline protestant churches ordain women to be ministers, but some segments of the Lutheran Church, the Southern Baptist Church and non-mainline churches such as the Assembly of God do not.

Carriere remembers a day in 1989, holding her newborn son, feeling scared.

"I remember while rocking him, holding him, I heard God's voice say, 'Don't worry; I will be your mother.' That experience really broadened my theology of God as a parent, not just Father. He is male and female."

The Rev. Carriere tells women that it is OK to pray to God as a woman.