A Queens woman made history at a Harlem church Sunday night.
That is when Rev. Keith Roberson, pastor of the Southern Baptist Church, and more than a dozen ministers from around the city ordained Cambria Heights resident Eva Duzant.
Duzant is the first woman to be ordained as a minister in the church?s 90 year history.
Southern Baptist Church is located at 12-16 W. 108th St., between Central Park West and Manhattan Ave. and has a membership of about 350. It is not to be confused with the Southern Baptist Convention, a national association of churches.
Roberson, who has pastored Southern Baptist for almost five years, said he did not know why no woman had previously been ordained at Southern.
?I was not here so I can?t speak on that,? Roberson said.
Duzant, he said, ?was already a minister. I encouraged her to go further in her ministry, to be all she can be in the Lord, because I knew the best was yet to come.?
Duzant, 64, a former math teacher at Brian Piccolo Middle School in Far Rockaway, Queens, is president of the Cambria Heights Development Corp., a group of local businesses located along Linden Boulevard. A certified public accountant, Duzant is owner of E.G. Edwards & Associates, a tax and accounting firm in Cambria Heights.
She has an associates degree in business administration from Queensborough Community College and a Bachelors of Science in accounting and taxation and a masters degree in education from St. John?s University.
?At one point I wanted to leave that church because I was told I would never be ordained there,? Duzant said in an interview. ?Even though there were a lot of things I could do in the church, there was a lot I could not do.
?But my mentor, Rev. J. G. McCann of St. Luke Baptist Church (also in Harlem) said God had me there for a reason.?
?Her commitment to the community is well documented and her relationship with God and the church speaks for itself,? said Curtis Taylor, a friend who Duzant thanked in her remarks. ?She is a role model for young women and for all New Yorkers.?
Women have made amazing strides in the African-American church and the church in general.
Rev. Suzan Johnson-Cook of Bronx Christian Fellowship Church (formerly of Mariners Temple Baptist Church in downtown Manhattan) last year was named President Obama?s Ambassador for Religious Freedom, the first woman and African-American to hold the post.
Women ministers like Joyce Meyer, Juanita Bynum, Victoria Osteen and Paula White maintain large and prosperous international ministries.
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