York has never seen anything quite like it in all the centuries a church has stood here since the first was built in 637. There have been Viking raids, civil war and even a lightning strike, supposedly divine punishment for the consecration of a heretical bishop of Durham. But never before has a new bishop walked down the aisle at her consecration ceremony flanked by her husband.

Women have been consecrated as bishops in many parts of the worldwide Anglican communion since 1989, and as priests in England since 1994, but opponents put up a long resistance to their further promotion in the Church of England, which only became possible last autumn. When the ceremony was over there were two women weeping in the congregation near me, and the bishop herself looked quite dazed with happiness and pride.

A lone protester, the Rev Paul Williamson, raised an objection when the archbishop of York asked, as the liturgy demands, whether the congregation approved the ordination of Libby Lane. He has been objecting to women clergy at least since 1994, when he attempted to charge the Archbishops of Canterbury and York with high treason for changing the law so that women could be ordained priests. He was not exactly shouted down: the archbishop, John Sentamu, read a long list of reasons why the consecration was in fact legal, then asked the question again. This time the assent was almost deafening.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Libby Lane (front) is applauded by other clergymen in front of York Minster. Photograph: Nigel Roddis/EPA

“I’ve worked in York Minster for 15 years and I’ve never heard a shout as loud as that,” said Eleanor Course, one of the congregation.

The service itself, running at more than two hours, was an almost flawless spectacle, yet curiously shrunken. The nave of the minster was filled, but the side aisles were lined with empty chairs. The authorities had made the event ticket only and it was said afterwards that many people had failed to apply because they thought there would be no room.

Meanwhile, Roman Catholic bishops, who frequently attend important Anglican occasions, were absent. None were officially boycotting it, but none, it seemed, had room in their diaries for such a historic occasion. The service marked a final and decisive break with the tradition of an all-male priesthood.

At the moment of consecration, more than 100 bishops rose in their white and scarlet robes to encircle Lane, and lay hands on her so that she seemed for the moment to disappear at the centre of a giant chrysanthemum. The closest laid their hands on her; those further back laid hands on the ones inside. It was a sign that she was being joined into a tradition running all the way back to Jesus and the disciples who his hands had touched.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Archbishop of York John Sentamu applauds following the service where Libby Lane was consecrated as the first female bishop in the Church of England. Photograph: Reuters

The nature of the service meant that Lane had little to say, beyond promising allegiance to the Queen and the archbishop. But afterwards she modestly observed she could not live up to everybody’s expectation. “My consecration service is not really about me,” Lane added. “With echoes of practice which has been in place for hundreds of years in the church, it is a reminder that what I am about to embark on is shared by the bishops around me, by those who have gone before me and those who will come after.”

She will be the first of many. The archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has said he would like half of bishops to be women in 15 years’ time. Many of the senior clergy in York are women, among them the dean of the cathedral, Viv Faull, and the archdeacon of York, Sarah Bullock, who preached the sermon.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Libby Lane during the service where she became the first woman bishop of the Church of England. Photograph: Lynne Cameron/AFP/Getty Images

Bullock called God, “God our midwife”, which would once have been a scandal but turned out to be an allusion to a television programme, “Call the Midwife”. Later she concluded that the programme was all about Jesus. There are some traditions that women clergy will not change at all.

As the cathedral clergy in their golden robes snaked in their stately procession around the nave, with the choir all in white and the bishops in white and scarlet, the theatre still seemed moving enough.

It was possible to forget that no Christian service in the last thirty years has gripped the country like the strange spontaneous paganism of the mourning for Diana. In 2012, when an evangelical minority blocked the appointment of women bishops – for the last time – I wrote that I had watched the church commit suicide. Today we saw it was still alive, if a little weak, and may yet stand again.