Episcopal News Service October 31, 2006
Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold begins 'new season' of public ministry
By Bob Williams
[ENS] A "new season" of public ministry given to teaching, writing, and convening interfaith and international dialogue begins All Saints' Day, November 1, for Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold, 69. Griswold's nine-year term in office as the Episcopal Church's Primate and 25th Presiding Bishop concludes October 31.
Griswold's successor, Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, who will be invested as 26th Presiding Bishop on November 4 noted on the day of her election that she hopes he will have a continuing public ministry on behalf of the Episcopal Church. "He has very much more to offer us all," she said. "We will continue to give thanks for the gifts he has given us in ways that we may not yet recognize." Jefferts Schori has asked Griswold to lead the Episcopal Church's deputation to the "Toward Effective Anglican Mission (TEAM)" meeting in Boksburg, South Africa in March 2007.
As part of his new work, Griswold has accepted the invitation of New York's Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine to be the Cathedral's Canon for International and Interfaith Ministry, Dean James Kowalski has announced.
"This ministry is about building upon relationships, and especially upon the work that Bishop Griswold has been doing for some years to bring people of all faiths together for reconciliation and justice without participating in divisiveness," Kowalski said. The dean underscored the strategic location of the New York cathedral in "arguably the most international city in the world" and in proximity to the headquarters of the United Nations.
Griswold noted that "As Presiding Bishop I have been privileged to travel extensively in other parts of the world and to experience the complex realities with which our brother and sister Anglicans live day by day. This has given me an enlarged sense of what it means to be an Anglican in a global context."
Griswold has also accepted invitations to lecture and teach in seminaries, both in the United States and other Anglican provinces, and to conduct retreats and conferences. Among the first of these are an Advent retreat for clergy and laity December 3-6 at the Cathedral College in Washington, and February 24-27 Lenten presentations at Trinity Church in Santa Barbara, California.
He also has plans for writing books, including one which will focus on the connections between ministry and spiritual life and another "guide for seekers."
Griswold's wife, Phoebe, plans to continue her work with international Anglican Women's Empowerment, an organization of which she is a founding member, that widens women's leadership in addressing global concerns at all levels of church life.
Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_79111_ENG_HTM.htm
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