A snowstorm last March canceled our service with Bishop Kirk Smith,  but we are delighted to let you know that he is joining us July 29th.  He will lead us in worship at 10:30 am and we will have a potluck dinner with him following the service. We extend a welcome to all who would like to join us for this special service and for the dinner following. The Rt. Rev. Kirk Stevan Smith, PhD, DD, was elected the Fifth Bishop of Arizona on October 18, 2003 at All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Phoenix. He was consecrated at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Phoenix on April 24, 2004 and seated on October 15, 2004 at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Phoenix.

He earned his baccalaureate in history at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon and went on to earn his PhD in medieval church history from Cornell University in 1976, having spent an academic year at Oxford University studying and writing his thesis. He then studied for holy orders at the Berkeley Seminary at Yale, was deaconed in 1979, and ordained a priest in 1980, through the auspices of his home diocese of Arizona. Bishop Smith received an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree in October 2005, from Berkeley Divinity School at Yale.

He has authored two books during his episcopate. In 2013, he and three fellow ecumenical bishops (Catholic, Lutheran and United Methodist) wrote Bishops on the Border: Pastoral Responses to Immigration about their common experiences with key immigration issues, especially those being played out in the state of Arizona. Bishop Smith scripted Augustine’s Relic: Lessons from the Oldest Book in England in 2016. After spending time with the St. Augustine’s Gospels, believed to be the oldest non-archeological object in Great Britain, he used this great volume as a starting point for a contemporary conversation on communication, unity, and continuity.