In the documentary "Jesus Female Disciples," historians and Bible scholars visit ancient catacombs in Naples, Italy. There the painting "Cerula" is preserved.

According to art historian Ally Kateusz, who guides the researchers through the catacombs, the painting is from the late 400s or early 500s.

Women performed "male chores"

Ally Kateusz tells us that the painting is contemporary with a certain event within the church.

- Year 495 AD wrote Pope Gelasius I to the bishops of southern Italy, and maligned that women there performed services at the altar and performed other male chores.

For over a millennium, women were banned from having titles as priests or bishops by many Christians and even today Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches say no to priesthood ordination of women. They refer to the long tradition that only men are dedicated to priests and bishops.

But the symbolism in the painting "Cerula" may indicate that they were wrong, according to art historian Ally Kateusz.

- Only bishops had open gospel books above their heads.

First priests of the Swedish Church

In Sweden, the church meeting in 1958 decided that women should have the opportunity to become priests. Two years later, the first three female priests were ordained in the Swedish church.

In 1997 Sweden got its first bishop and in 2014 the first female archbishop, Antje Jackelén, joined.

Want to know more about the researchers' theories about how women may have figured in early Christianity? The documentary Jesus' female disciples can be seen on SVT Play.