Bishop Peter Lee named interim dean of American Cathedral in Paris
Episcopal News Service. September 20, 2011 [092011-05]
ENS staff
Bishop Peter James Lee will become interim dean of the American Cathedral in Paris in early 2012.
The announcement was made by the Rt. Rev. Pierre Whalon, bishop-in-charge of the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe, according to an article posted on the Anglican Communion News Service.
The current dean, the Very Rev. Zachary Fleetwood, will resign as dean of the American Cathedral in October and move to Edinburgh to become rector of St. Columba's-by-the-Castle. Fleetwood has served as cathedral dean since 2003.
"Bishop Lee brings a lifetime of experience to the position, assuming leadership at a critical period in the life of the cathedral community,” said Whalon.
In October, the cathedral will break ground on the largest capital improvement project since the church was constructed in 1886. The two-year long project includes plans to modernize the cathedral's physical plant, to create new space to accommodate the parish's growing ministry and mission needs, and to provide expanded office space for the cathedral staff and the offices of the convocation.
The origins of the American Cathedral, a congregation in the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe, date to the 1830s when U.S. Episcopalians began to gather for worship in Paris. The current cathedral was consecrated on Thanksgiving Day in 1886 and has since served as a center for worship for Americans and other English-speaking people in Paris.
Lee retired in 2009 after serving for 25 years as the 12th bishop of the Diocese of Virginia. He has since served as interim dean of Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, and interim dean of General Theological Seminary in New York.
The ACNS article describes Lee as "a prominent figure in the Episcopal Church, respected for his leadership and contributions to the work of the church in the United States and to the global mission of the Anglican Communion ... For more than a quarter century, Bishop Lee has maintained a commitment to the well-being and work of the church."
Lee has served as chair of the Church Pension Fund board; trustee of Berkley Divinity School at Yale; 17 years as chair of the board of trustees for Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria; board member for the National Alliance to End Homelessness. He also served on the advisory committee to the Anglican Observer at the United Nations and on the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief (forerunner to Episcopal Relief & Development).
Lee was born in Mississippi and raised in Florida. After a stint in law school, as a newspaper reporter, and as a wartime military intelligence officer, Lee began his ministry at an urban cathedral in Jacksonville, Florida. In the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe, he previously worked for a short time at the former Episcopal Church in Nice, Church of the Holy Spirit.
Lee graduated magna cum laude from Washington and Lee University, and studied law at Duke University. He earned a Master of Divinity degree from Virginia Theological Seminary in 1967.
He is married to Kristina Lee. They have two children and five grandchildren.