On July 23,
2013, St. Peter’s by the Sea Episcopal Church will be hosting the Most Reverend
Katharine Jefferts Schori, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. She
will be preaching and celebrating at St. Peter’s at 5:30PM and the public is
invited to attend. The clergy of Sitka are invited to come and wear their
clergy vestments in procession. Jefferts Schori was elected Presiding Bishop
of the Episcopal Church in June 2006. She serves as chief pastor and
primate to the Episcopal Church's members in 16 countries and 110 dioceses.
She joins with other principal bishops of the 38-member Provinces of the
worldwide Anglican Communion, seeking a common cause for global good and
reconciliation.
The Presiding Bishop has been vocal about the Episcopal
Church's mission priorities, including the United Nation Millennium Development
Goals, issues of domestic poverty, climate change and care for the earth, as
well as the ongoing need to contextualize the gospel. As Presiding Bishop,
she is charged to speak God's word to the church and to the world.
Bishop Jefferts Schori's career began as an oceanographer. She holds a B.S. in biology from Stanford
University, an M.S. and Ph.D. in oceanography from Oregon State University, an
M.Div. from Church Divinity School of the Pacific, and several honorary
doctoral degrees. She was ordained in as a priest in 1994 and ordained to the
episcopate February 24, 2001 in the Diocese of Nevada. She remains an
active, instrument-rated pilot – a skill she applied when traveling between the
congregations of the Diocese of Nevada.
Bishop Jefferts Schori grew up in the Seattle area and has
spent most of her life in the West. Bishop Jefferts Schori and her husband,
Richard Miles Schori, a retired mathematician (topologist), were married in
1979. They have one daughter, who is a captain (pilot) in the U.S. Air Force.
