CONNECTICUT: Diocese's first woman bishop ordained, consecrated
Episcopal News Service. July 3, 2007 [070307-04]
Mary Frances Schjonberg
The Rev. Dr. Laura Ahrens became bishop suffragan of the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut June 30 and became the 1,018 bishop of the Episcopal Church, the latest in a line that began with her diocesan ancestor, Samuel Seabury, the first bishop of Connecticut and of the Episcopal Church.
Ahrens, vested in a plain white alb, spent the first part of the service sitting in the front row of Woolsey Hall in New Haven, joining about 1,500 others for the Liturgy of the Word. She often held the hand of her fiancé, Robert Fawber, who was one of her presenters.
Ahrens, 44, was elected March 10 and is the first woman elected bishop in Connecticut. At the time, she was the 14th woman elected to the House of Bishops. Since then, she has been joined June 15 by the Ven. Mary Gray-Reeves who was elected bishop of the Diocese of El Camino Real June 16.
Connecticut Bishop Andrew D. Smith, Connecticut Bishop Suffragan James E. Curry, New York Bishop Suffragan Catherine Roskam and Olympia Bishop Vincent Warner joined chief consecrator Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori as consecrators.
Warner was rector of St. Andrew's in Wellesley, Massachusetts, Ahrens' church while growing up and the church that sponsored her from priestly ordination and later ordained her a priest.
Five of the church's female bishops joined 14 male bishops in laying hands on the new bishop's head.
"I think it's wonderful," retired Diocese of Massachusetts Bishop Suffragan Barbara C. Harris told the New Haven Register newspaper at a reception afterward. "It's time for us to have a significant presence at all levels of ministry."
Bishops representing all seven New England dioceses, five current and former Connecticut bishops and visitors from Colombia and Scotland joined in the consecration, according to the Register.
Seabury was consecrated in Scotland rather than England in 1784 because he wouldn't swear an oath to King George III. On June 30, Bishop-elect Robert Gillies of the Scottish Diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney came to New Haven.
"We like to say that in Aberdeen and Connecticut the worldwide Anglican Communion was born," said the Rev. Mark Pendleton, dean of Christ Church Cathedral in Hartford, in introducing Gillies.
In her sermon, Jefferts Schori used the image of the quaking aspen to describe the church's strength as it trembles in awe of the work God has given its people to do, according to the Register.
"Quaking aspens are known to scientists as Populus tremuloides," she said. "If you'll pardon the wordplay," Jefferts Schori said, Christians should consider themselves "a populace that trembles."
Of Ahrens, the presiding bishop said, "Laura herself has told us that she has known since childhood that she was called to this kind of work, beginning with preaching peace to stuffed animals."
Among the people giving Ahrens gifts to symbolize her new ministry were her parents, Fawber and his three children.
"I think she's pretty cool. I'm proud of her,” Annie Fawber, 17, told the Register.
More information about Ahrens life and ministry is available here.