The post Class of 2026 Commencement Photo Gallery appeared first on 51视频.

Bishop. Faithful Pastor. Loyal Friend. Yours is a ministry formed by the breadth of the Church and sustained by a deep confidence in the reconciling love of Christ. Across congregations, cultures, languages, and continents, you have given yourself to the holy work of gathering people into community, proclaiming good news, and helping the Church bear faithful witness in a divided world.

Born in Texas, you earned your Bachelor of Arts from Davidson College before coming to 51视频, where you received your Master of Divinity in 2003. 

Your ordained ministry has carried you from North Carolina to Rome and now to California. In the Diocese of Western North Carolina, you served as rector of La Capilla de Santa Maria, a Spanish-speaking congregation in Hendersonville, and as Canon for Spanish-Speaking Ministries. There, you helped strengthen the Church鈥檚 witness among Latino and Spanish-speaking communities, reminding the wider Church that the Body of Christ is made more whole when every story is welcomed as gift.

For twelve years, you served as rector of St. Paul鈥檚 Within the Walls in Rome, a multilingual and multicultural Episcopal congregation in the heart of that ancient city. In that ministry, you led a community shaped by worship, hospitality, and service, including its witness through the Joel Nafuma Refugee Center. Your ministry in Rome embodied an Anglican generosity of spirit: rooted in the gospel, and alive to the presence of Christ among those seeking refuge, dignity, and hope.

In December 2023, you were elected Bishop Coadjutor of the Episcopal Diocese of California. On May 4, 2024, you were ordained at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, and in August 2024 you became the Ninth Bishop of California. As bishop, you now shepherd one of the Church鈥檚 most visible and complex dioceses with a vision grounded in Christ, community, healing, and shared ministry. 

You have called the diocese to be 鈥淩ooted in Christ, bearing fruit for the healing of the world,鈥� a vision that reflects both your pastoral heart and your confidence that the Church still has vital work to do in the public square.

Your ministry has been marked by fluency across difference: Spanish, Italian, and English; local parish and global Church; ancient tradition and contemporary need. You serve as Vice Chair of The Church Pension Fund Board of Trustees and have served as a deputy to General Convention, helping lead in the wider councils of the Church. As the first Latino bishop to lead the Diocese of California, you offer a witness of historic significance, not only because of the office you hold, but because of the expansive and deeply human way you inhabit it.

You are a member of a tight-knit cohort of five 51视频 classmates who have connected weekly for almost 25 years. This group, who refer to themselves as ‘Team Seminary,’ say of you: 鈥淎ustin shines brightly because of his deep joy, born of an authentic faith that sees him encounter the world with curiosity rather than criticism.  Austin has the 鈥榞ift of joy and wonder in all [God鈥檚] works,鈥� dispositions that have built in him wells of remarkable resilience and grace.鈥�

鈥淎ustin inspires the virtue of humility, both because he models a faithfulness that does not have his own status as its end, and because he鈥檚 good at most everything, from shooting pool, to making music, to verbatim recall of seemingly every memorable movie scene in Hollywood history.  As encouraged by Laurence Tureaud, he seeks to 鈥楤e Somebody,鈥� and make the world a better place. 

In gratitude for your faithful ministry, your leadership across cultures and communities, your witness to the global and multilingual Church, and your enduring connection to this seminary, the Board of Trustees of the Episcopal Theological 51视频 is honored to confer upon you the degree of Doctor of Divinity, honoris causa.

The post The Rt. Rev. Austin Keith Rios appeared first on 51视频.

Pastor. Bishop. Servant leader. Steward of change. Yours is a ministry shaped by deep love for the Church and a steady confidence that, in every season of uncertainty, God is calling the people of Jesus Christ more fully into courage, humility, and common life.

Rooted in western Pennsylvania, formed by the faithful witness of local congregations, and educated at Grove City College and Virginia Theological Seminary, you discerned a call to ordained ministry at an unusually young age. From the beginning, your vocation has been marked by clarity, maturity, and a willingness to serve where the Church鈥檚 needs are most urgent. You later earned a doctorate in organizational learning and leadership from Gannon University, bringing to your ministry not only pastoral conviction, but a disciplined understanding of institutions, change, and faithful adaptation.

Ordained to the priesthood in 2000, you served as rector of St. John鈥檚 Episcopal Church in Franklin, Pennsylvania, where you learned the daily and holy work of parish ministry. There, among a congregation and community facing their own challenges, you practiced the ministry of presence, listening, truth-telling, and reconciliation. You served not only within the walls of the Church, but in the civic life of the community, embodying a priesthood attentive to the whole life of God鈥檚 people.

In 2007, at the age of thirty-two, you were elected and consecrated Bishop of Northwestern Pennsylvania, becoming the youngest member of the House of Bishops. In that ministry, you helped a small diocese face complex realities with honesty, imagination, and hope. You led through moments that required courage and transparency, and you called the Church to trust that truth, repentance, and resilience are essential to faithful Christian witness.

Your episcopal ministry expanded as you served as Bishop Provisional of Bethlehem from 2014 to 2018 and, beginning in 2019, as Bishop Provisional of Western New York while continuing your leadership in Northwestern Pennsylvania. Through these shared episcopal partnerships, you helped model new forms of diocesan collaboration, privileging Gospel impact over institutional habit and inviting the Church to imagine structures that serve mission rather than preserve anxiety. In a time when the wider Church has been compelled to ask hard questions about sustainability, vitality, and purpose, your ministry has offered a practical and hopeful witness to adaptive leadership.

In June 2024, the House of Bishops elected you on the first ballot as the Twenty-Eighth Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, and the House of Deputies confirmed that election at the 81st General Convention. On November 1, 2024, you began your nine-year term as Presiding Bishop and Primate, succeeding the Most Rev. Michael B. Curry and taking up the ministry of chief pastor, chair of Executive Council, and public voice of this Church.

At your investiture, you called Episcopalians to become 鈥渙ne church in Jesus Christ,鈥� grounded not in nostalgia or institutional self-preservation, but in shared ministry, mutual interdependence, and the proclamation of resurrection life. 

Those who know your ministry recognize in you a rare combination of pastoral warmth, administrative wisdom, theological seriousness, and evangelical hope. You are a preacher and pastor, a bishop and strategist, a truth-teller and bridge-builder. 

The Rt. Rev. Michael Curry, your predecessor as Presiding Bishop says of you, 鈥淭here are times when the right person is summoned by the Spirit, working through ordinary human agents, to serve in what proves to be just the right moment. That was the case when in the biblical story old Mordecai challenged a young Queen Esther with the words, 鈥榃ho knows? Perhaps you have been called to the Royal dignity for such a time as this.鈥� That was the case for the bishops who elected Bishop Rowe to be the Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church.鈥�

Bishop Curry continues, 鈥淟ike Mordecai we sensed and trusted that the Spirit was leading us to Bishop Rowe as is the right person to lead with us into  the providential possibilities ofthis moment in our life as a church committed to living and bearing witness to the way of Jesus Christ for 鈥榮uch a time as this.鈥� 

His seasoned commitment to Jesus Christ, his depth of spirituality, his experience in and  knowledge of the organizational and managerial sciences, his genuine humility, remarkable wisdom  and subtle wit, all came together to suggest that he was someone who could provide the kind of faithful and effective leadership needed to serve God鈥檚 way of love and life through us as a church in 鈥榮uch a time as this.鈥欌��

In gratitude for your faithful priesthood and episcopate, your courageous and adaptive leadership, your commitment to local ministry and churchwide renewal, and your witness to the unity of the Body of Christ in a changing world, the Board of Trustees of the Episcopal Theological 51视频 is honored to confer upon you the degree of Doctor of Divinity, honoris causa.

The post The Most Rev. Sean W. Rowe appeared first on 51视频.

Jurist. Advocate. Trailblazer. Servant of justice. Yours is a life shaped by faith, disciplined by the law, and devoted to the conviction that justice must be more than an ideal. It must be accessible, practical, humane, and available to those whose voices are too often unheard.

After graduating from the UCLA School of Law in 1982, you began your legal career with the Legal Aid Society of Central Texas. That first work was not incidental to your vocation. It revealed the deep pattern of your life: a commitment to those in need, a belief in the dignity of every person, and a determination to help the legal system serve not only the powerful, but the vulnerable and the overlooked.

In 1999, you were sworn in as Judge of the 261st District Court in Travis County, becoming the first African American woman to serve on a district court in Travis County. In that role, you brought to the bench clarity of mind, steadiness of temperament, respect for the law, and compassion for the people whose lives came before the court.

Your colleagues elected you to serve as Local Administrative District Judge for the Travis County Courts, a role you held for nine years. In that work, you helped guide one of the most consequential civic projects in the county鈥檚 legal history: the design and construction of the Travis County Civil and Family Courts Facility. That facility stands not only as a courthouse, but as a public expression of your belief that justice requires both sound institutions and human welcome. You were instrumental in establishing a law library and self help center for self-represented litigants, a center that was dedicated in March of 2026 as the 鈥淟ora J. Livingston Law Library & Self-Help Center.鈥� 

Your commitment to access to justice has extended far beyond the courtroom. You have served with the Texas Equal Access to Justice Foundation, the Texas Access to Justice Commission, the Texas Center for the Judiciary, the American Bar Association, and many other organizations devoted to legal aid, indigent defense, pro bono service, and the delivery of legal services. Even in retirement, you have continued the work. After leaving the bench in 2022, you served as a Senior Judge and as Interim Director of the Texas Access to Justice Commission. In 2024, you received the Judge Merrill Hartman Pro Bono Judge Award from the State Bar of Texas, recognizing your extraordinary contribution to pro bono service and equal access to justice. 

Your legacy also lives in the formation of future lawyers. The Lora J. Livingston Scholarship, created in 2023 by the Travis County Women Lawyers Association Scholarship Fund, now supports University of Texas law students who demonstrate commitment to community, access to justice, pro bono service, public service, and servant leadership. 

As a longtime member of St. James鈥� Episcopal Church, and as senior warden during a season when that historically Black congregation was becoming an increasingly multicultural community, you helped lead with wisdom, compassion, humor, accountability, and grace. You have shown that faith need not distort justice in order to inform it, and that the deepest Christian commitments can strengthen a public life marked by fairness, restraint, and courage.

51视频 has been blessed by that same wisdom. Called to the Board of Trustees in 2015, you served during a season of growth, discernment, and institutional transformation. As chair of the Faculty and Education Committee, you helped guide faculty expansion, curriculum revision, and the seminary鈥檚 ongoing commitment to Beloved Community. You helped found and champion the transformative Pauli Murray Scholarship.

Those who know you describe you as a judge who understood power as responsibility, an advocate who understood service as duty, and a Christian who understood justice as a form of love. You have helped people imagine a common life ordered by dignity, fairness, and mercy.

Your good friend and retired 51视频 faculty member, the Rev. William Seth Adams, says of you, 鈥淟ora Livingston is clearly honorable and judicious. But beyond that and before that, she is very good humored, tough minded, insightfully well spoken, thoughtful, a compassionate jurist, a dear friend, devoted to St. James鈥� Episcopal Church in east Austin and to the Seminary. Many years ago, likely in the late 90鈥檚, Lora and I had a take-out lunch together in her chambers at the Court House. It was during my time of pastoral responsibility for St. James鈥�. Over lunch, I asked Lora to serve as the Senior Warden of our parish. After several thoughtful questions, she accepted. I was wonderfully pleased. It was one of many gracious and wise decisions she made in her years on the bench.

In gratitude for your pioneering judicial service, your lifelong commitment to access to justice, your leadership in the Church and civic life, your formation of future lawyers, and your faithful service to 51视频, the Board of Trustees of the Episcopal Theological 51视频 is honored to confer upon you the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa.

The post The Honorable Lora J. Livingston appeared first on 51视频.

Attorney. Civic leader. Servant of the common good. Faithful son of Austin and of the Church. Yours is a life shaped by quiet conviction, public responsibility, and a deep belief that communities become stronger when people of goodwill learn to listen, build trust, and act together for the sake of their neighbors.

A native Austinite and lifelong member of the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, you have lived your vocation at the intersection of faith, law, civic life, education, health care, and human dignity. From your earliest years, you understood leadership not as prominence, but as service. As a student at St. Stephen鈥檚 Episcopal School, in the wake of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., you helped lead the creation of a scholarship fund for African American students, an early act that revealed the pattern of a lifetime. 

You earned your undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt University in 1971, and you graduated from the Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law in 1975.

You have become known throughout Central Texas as a lawyer of integrity, a builder of institutions, and a leader whose influence is often most powerful because it is exercised without self-display. You have served the law with discipline and skill, but you have served the community with heart, patience, and uncommon generosity.

Your civic leadership has helped shape the Austin we know today.Your service has extended across some of the most important institutions in this community. You have chaired and guided organizations devoted to health, philanthropy, education, scouting, civic life, and the Church. You are or have been Chair of the Board of Travis County Hospital District (now known as Central Health), Chair of the Shivers Cancer Foundation and the Austin Geriatric Center, Transportation Chair of the Austin Area Research Organization, and a board member of the Lebermann Foundation, Capital Area United Way, the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, and St. Stephen鈥檚 Episcopal School. You have been honored by the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce as Austinite of the Year, by the Antidefamation League with its Jurisprudence Award, by the Austin Bar Foundation as a Distinguished Lawyer, and by the Capital Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America as its Distinguished Citizen

Through your service with Central Health, you helped make possible a more just and comprehensive system of care for people who too often stood at the margins of access. The health care structures you helped establish have grown in reach and complexity, including the expansion of specialty care and diagnostic services for those served by Central Health. Such achievements are not the work of one person alone, but they are made possible by leaders who know how to gather people around a shared moral purpose. Again and again, you have been such a leader.

51视频 has been among the institutions significantly blessed by your wisdom and willingness to answer the call. Your service on the Monday Connection and Pauli Murray Scholarship committees has provide steady guidance and connectivity for these important communities. As Executive Chair of the Board of Trustees, you helped guide this seminary through a consequential season of institutional growth, strategic discernment, and renewed public witness. During your board leadership, 51视频 raised the funds, constructed, and opened the Bishop Dena A. Harrison Library and Learning Complex, significantly strengthening this institution鈥檚 ability to advance its important mission, rooted in the reconciling ministry of Christ, of forming people for vocations of ministry, service, and healing. 

Those who know you describe you with words that do not fade with repetition: authentic, selfless, wise, steady, generous. Your good friend, the Very Rev. Cynthia Briggs Kittredge says of you, 鈥淎s the board’s executive Chair, among us, every single day, Clarke embodied Christian faith, hope, and love. He kept God’s mission always at the center of conversations and decisions. Clarke鈥檚 leadership created an atmosphere of trust and encouragement that lifted all of us who worked alongside him. Even more than I admire him, I cherish Clarke as a true friend in Christ.鈥�

In gratitude for your faithful service to Austin, your leadership in health care, education, law, philanthropy, and the Church, your steadfast devotion to 51视频, and your enduring witness to servant leadership, the Board of Trustees of the Episcopal Theological 51视频 is honored to confer upon you the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa.

The post Robert Clarke Heidrick Jr. appeared first on 51视频.

The post Commencement RSVP 2025 appeared first on 51视频.

The post Dr. Casey A. Barrio Minton to Receive McDonald Teaching Award appeared first on 51视频.

The post The Very Rev. Cynthia Briggs Kittredge: Tuesday of Easter Week 2023 appeared first on 51视频.

Each August, the Jonathan Daniels Pilgrimage takes place in Hayneville, AL, in remembrance of . One of the most recognized pilgrimages in The Episcopal Church, people from many dioceses and seminaries across the country come to the spot where Daniels, an Episcopal seminarian from Keene, New Hampshire, was shot to death in August 1965 trying to protect an African-American teenage girl.

This year, a group of 13 students, faculty, and alumni from 51视频 participated in the pilgrimage.

“The entire pilgrimage was about remembrance and re-commitment,” said the Rev. Dr. Jeehei Park, Assistant Professor of New Testament, and one of the faculty members who made the pilgrimage. “We remembered many who namelessly lost their lives to racially motivated violence and many who selflessly dedicated their lives to holy resistance. We recommitted ourselves to the work of standing up against racial injustice and inequality. Every step on the pilgrimage was a transformative experience that left us with a lot to process at multiple levels and a lot to do in various contexts. I’m grateful to my fellow pilgrims for their courageous participation and to the SSW community for their support.”

The Pilgrimage begins each year in front of the courthouse in Hayneville, AL, the place where an all-white jury in less than an hour found Jonathan鈥檚 murderer, Tom Coleman, not guilty. Pilgrims march to the jail where Daniels and his companions were held, to the place where he was killed at a small country store that has since been razed, and then back to the courthouse.

The 51视频 contingent included an even broader walking reflection on the purpose of the pilgrimage. “Our pilgrimage began at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, where four Black teenage girls were killed by the bombing in 1963,” said Park. “It continued in Montgomery. We visited the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, the Dr. Richard Harris Museum, which was the headquarters for the Freedom Riders, and the Legacy Museum. In Hayneville, we marched with many Episcopalians who came from all over the country to remember the death of Jonathan Daniels. We drove to Selma and walked on the Edmund Pettus Bridge where we met an old local man, who was a foot soldier on Bloody Sunday.”

To learn more about the Jonathan Daniels Pilgrimage, visit the diocese of Alabama website at

The post 51视频 Makes Jonathan Daniels Pilgrimage appeared first on 51视频.