Episcopal Church bishop to visit area

From the Diocese of Bethlehem-

Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori will make her first visit to the Diocese of Bethlehem this week, stopping at St. Stephen’s Procathedral in Wilkes-Barre on Wednesday.

Featured events during her visit will be Evensong at 6 p.m., during which she will preach, followed by a reception and open forum. Today, the bishop will be at Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. On Tuesday, she will be at St. Luke’s Church in Lebanon.

The public is invited to these events.

Additionally, Jefferts Schori will visit local ministries on Tuesday morning and meet with Moravians at Moravian Seminary, Bethlehem, on Wednesday morning. Diocesan youth have been invited to meet with her at St. Stephen’s on Wednesday afternoon.

Finally, she will meet with the clergy of the Diocese of Bethlehem on Thursday morning at Good Shepherd, Scranton.

Jefferts Schori was elected presiding bishop for a nine-year term in 2006. She serves as chief pastor to the Episcopal Church’s 2.4 million members in 110 dioceses in 16 countries, the first woman to hold a comparable office throughout the worldwide Anglican Communion. Some Anglican provinces don’t permit women to be ordained priests; some of those that do don’t allow them to be consecrated bishops.

She has been vocal about the Episcopal Church’s mission priorities, including the UN Millennium Development Goals, issues of domestic poverty, climate change and care for the Earth, as well as the ongoing need to contextualize the gospel.

A career as an oceanographer preceded Jefferts Schori’s studies for the priesthood, to which she was ordained in 1994. She served for six years as Bishop of Nevada before election to this post. She grew up in the Seattle area, and lived a few years in New Jersey, but has spent most of her life in the West. Bishop Jefferts Schori and her husband, Richard Miles Schori, a retired mathematician, were married in 1979. They have one daughter, who is a pilot captain in the U.S. Air Force.

More here-

http://www.timesleader.com/news/Episcopal_Church_bishop_to_visit_area_11-09-2009.html