Mary-Anne Plaatjies van Huffel

Mary-Anne Plaatjies van Huffel (15 December 1959 – 19 May 2020) was a South African pastor and academic. She was the first female minister to be ordained by a Dutch Reformed Church in Southern Africa.

Plaatjies van Huffel was educated at the Bergriver High School in Wellington, and studied at University of the Western Cape, the University of South Africa (UNISA) and Pretoria University. She was the holder of two doctorates in Theology, one from UNISA (2003 Thesis on: Women in the theological anthropology of the Afrikaans Reformed Churches) and one from University of Pretoria (2009 Thesis on: Doleantie Church Polity and the church polity development of the mission churches in South Africa.

She was called to Robertson-Robertson East combination congregation and was ordained on 26 November 1992 as the first woman minister of the Word in the Dutch Reformed family. She was the first black woman to be promoted to full professor at the Faculty of Theology at Stellenbosch University. She was also the first woman to be elected as moderator of the General Synod of the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa (URCSA).

This honor was bestowed on her during the General Synod of URCSA in Namibia 2012. She taught Church Polity at Stellenbosch University.

She was elected as one of eight presidents of the World Council of Churches (WCC) at the General Assembly of the WCC in Busan, Korea, 2013. She would have served in this position until 2021, however she died at age 60 on 19 May 2020 from complications of undisclosed surgery. Provided by Wikipedia