![]() ![]() There was a disconnect, and I knew MemChu was a place where people wrestled, so I would go there in the middle of the night. ![]() “I was still at a pretty youthful faith-development stage, and there was all this great stuff I was learning in science. Born to Roman Catholic parents who became Episcopalians when she was 8, she would sometimes accompany a friend to “Uni Lu” (University Lutheran Church) and play the harp for services there, but she wasn’t affiliated with any denomination. “I was really wrestling with the science and religion thing,” says Jefferts Schori, ’74. Should she become a doctor? An oceanographer? Or what? A young biology major is sitting in a back pew in MemChu late at night, trying to sort things out. Now rewind to a smaller church out west, some 30 years ago. The applause and alleluias took on biblical proportions, filling the Gothic edifice from its brilliant blue rose window to the sparkling stained glass Space Window. Standing on the steps outside, in a sunrise-design robe and miter, she hoisted her crozier and smote the door three times, asking for admission.Ī half-hour later, after the giving of symbols of ministry and the singing of hymns of praise, the assembly was invited to greet its 26th presiding bishop. Katharine Jefferts Schori was about to make history on November 4. They all turned to face the west entrance of the cathedral, where the Most Rev. Two Oglala Lakota-Paiute Indians circled the altar, drumming and blessing it with eagle feathers, and a bearer carrying white, gold and silver jubilation streamers then led a procession of bishops and priests through the nave. ![]() After all, a new presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church is invested only once every nine years-and for the first time in the worldwide Anglican Communion’s history, a woman was about to assume leadership of one of its 38 independent, autonomous provinces. While 3,200 of the faithful waited in the sanctuary of Washington National Cathedral, hundreds of thousands more tuned in to the pageantry via webcasts and satellite downlinks. ![]()
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