And this time, the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, Andrew M. L. Dietsche, wrote an article for the cathedral’s booklet — an approving article. “In an evolving, growing, learning church,” he wrote, “we may be ready to see ‘Christa’ not only as a work of art but as an object of devotion, over our altar, with all of the challenges that may come with that for many visitors to the cathedral, or indeed, perhaps for all of us.”

Looking back, Dean Kowalski noted that the statue’s first appearance at the cathedral was long before national debates over such topics as transgender people’s right to use the bathroom of their choice. And the display came five years before the consecration of a woman as a bishop in the Episcopal Church, the Rev. Barbara C. Harris. She served as the suffragan bishop of the Diocese of Massachusetts until 2003.

Image The Very Rev. James A. Kowalski, the current dean of the cathedral, welcomed the statue. Credit... Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

Ms. Sandys molded “Christa” from clay in 1974, when she lived in London. “I thought: ‘What should I be doing today? Oh, I know, I’ll do a female Christ,’” she recalled. “It really just happened, more or less automatically.”

It was cast in bronze resin and mounted, at first, on a wooden cross. She ran into a reporter from The Daily Express, a British tabloid. “He ran right over there with a camera and all, and there I was plastered all over The Daily Express,” Ms. Sandys said.

Eventually, she had a bronze version cast, heavier and more permanent than the original. She brought it along when she moved to Manhattan a few years later. “I had ‘Christa’ hanging in my apartment,” she said.

She came to know the Very Rev. James Park Morton, the dean of the cathedral for 25 years until 1996. “I said, ‘How brave are you?’” in 1984, she recalled. “He may not have said ‘try me,’ but words to that effect. I said, ‘How would you like to exhibit “Christa,” the female Christ?’ He said, ‘I’d be delighted.’ I took a deep breath, and that was that.”