CHICAGO: Jeffrey Lee to be ordained and consecrated February 2
Episcopal News Service. January 28, 2008 [012808-04]
Jeffrey D. Lee will be ordained and consecrated as the 12th bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago on February 2.
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori will be the chief consecrator. She will be joined by Chicago Bishop William Persell, Chicago Assistant Bishop Victor Scantlebury, and retired Chicago Bishop James Montgomery. More than two dozen bishops of other Episcopal dioceses will participate, including Diocese of Olympia Bishop Gregory Rickell and Olympia Bishop Suffragan Bavi Edna "Nedi" Rivera. Lee was rector of St. Thomas Church in Medina, Washington, at the time of his election November 10.
Lee, 50, was elected on the second ballot out of a field of eight nominees. The election was held November 10, 2007 during the diocese's 170th annual convention.
Lee was ordained a deacon and priest in the Diocese of Northern Indiana in 1985, after earning the Master of Divinity degree from Nashotah House the same year. He served congregations in Indiana and Wisconsin before coming to St. Thomas in 2000. Lee and his wife, Lisa, are parents to two children.
Lee will succeed Bishop William Persell who is retiring with his wife, Nancy, to Cleveland.
The ordination and consecration will be held at the House of Hope, a 10,000 seat multi-purpose entertainment complex in Chicago that was founded by Illinois State Senator and Baptist minister James T. Meeks.
More that 4,000 clergy and lay members of the diocese, along with hundreds of Episcopalians from other dioceses and the bishop-elect’s home parish, are expected to attend the service. Five processions of more 100 people -- each a combination of bishops, priests, deacons, children and youth, lay leaders, seminary faculty, diocesan staff and ecumenical representatives, and each led by streamer bearers, crucifer, torch bearers -- will enter the arena from different points and converge on the central altar platform.
A musical prelude will feature the Chicago Civic Orchestra Brass Ensemble and the Choir of Harmony, Hope and Healing, a Chicago gospel choir that serves a music ministry to area shelters. A choir composed of choristers from diocesan congregations will lead the assembly in hymns and anthems during the service.
Lessons, prayers and the gospel will be read in the five languages in use in congregations of the diocese: English, Spanish, Korean, Malayam, and Dinka. The altar frontal cloth and other liturgical hangings were crafted by children of the diocese.
Lee will be seated in the diocese's St. James Cathedral during a Choral Evensong on the afternoon of February 3.
During Jefferts Schori's January 30-February 3 visit to the diocese, she will meet with the diocesan clergy, speak to the University of Chicago Divinity School faculty and students, and tour the Interfaith Refugee and Immigration Ministry on Chicago’s North Side. She will also preside and preach at a February 3 Holy Eucharist at St. Nicholas Episcopal Church in Elk Grove Village.