Episcopal Church bishop set to visit Capital Region

PHOTOGRAPHER: Michael Lamendola

The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church will make her first visit to the Episcopal Diocese of Albany this weekend, church officials announced.

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, the first woman elected as a primate of the Anglican Communion in the United States, will spend three days in the diocese.

She will spend Friday at Christ the King Spiritual Life Center in Greenwich, Washington County, meeting with diocese officials. On Saturday, she will visit Christ Church in Schenectady, beginning at 9 a.m. While here, she will review the diocese’s diaconal training program and its outreach ministries, followed by noon Eucharist and a question-and-answer period. On Sunday, Jefferts Schori will be guest celebrant and preacher at the Cathedral of All Saints at 10 a.m. in Albany.

Jefferts Schori’s visit to the Albany diocese is part of her responsibility to visit every diocese during her nine-year term. She was elected chief pastor to the Episcopal Church’s 2.4 million members in 16 countries and 110 dioceses at the 75th General Convention on June 18, 2006. The Episcopal Church is the U.S. wing of the global Anglican Communion.

Neva Rae Fox, program officer for the diocese’s office in New York City, said Jefferts Schori has visited more than 70 diocese in 16 countries since 2006.

Jefferts Schori was ordained in 1994. She was elected bishop of the Diocese of Nevada in 2000 and ordained to the episcopate Feb. 24, 2001. At the time of her election as bishop of Nevada, she was assistant rector of the Church of the Good Samaritan in Corvallis, Oregon.

Jefferts Schori was born March 26, 1954, in Pensacola, Fla. She grew up in the Seattle area and later moved with her family to New Jersey. Jefferts Schori and her husband, Richard Miles Schori, a retired theoretical mathematician, were married in 1979. They have one daughter, Katharine Johanna, 25, who is a first lieutenant and pilot in the U. S. Air Force.