Katharine Jefferts Schori

The Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, XXVI Presiding Bishop and Primate, 2006.

Katharine Jefferts Schori was born in Pensacola, Florida, in 1954, but grew up in Seattle. Following her completion of a B.S. degree in biology at Stanford, she earned both an M.S. and Ph.D. in oceanography from Oregon State University. While in the graduate program, she met Richard Schori, a mathematician at Oregon State University, who wrote later that he “was impressed that she drove a pickup truck, owned her house, had both a wheelbarrow and a posthole digger, knitted and sewed. And [they] had exactly the same high-end slide rules...” They married in 1979 and had a daughter, Kate, in 1981.

In 1991, Schori was called to ministry. She attended the Church Divinity School of the Pacific from which she earned her M.Div. degree. She was ordained as a priest in 1994 and worked both as a hospice chaplain and university lecturer. In 2000, she was elected bishop in the Diocese of Nevada and was consecrated in 2001. As an instrument-rated private pilot, she often flew herself between Nevada congregations.

Schori was elected Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church in 2006, the first woman to lead the church. She is a prolific writer and speaker on issues such as LGBTQ inclusion in the church, poverty, and climate change. After her nine-year term as Presiding Bishop ended in 2015, Schori became a Bishop Assisting to the Diocese of San Diego, where she served until 2019.

As of 2024, she serves as a Bishop Assisting to the Diocese of Los Angeles.