Edward J. Konieczny was consecrated as the new bishop for the Episcopal Diocese of Oklahoma at a ceremony Saturday.
Konieczny is replacing the Rt. Rev. Robert Moody, who is retiring after 18 years as Oklahoma’s Episcopal bishop.
The ceremony lasted 2 1/2 hours at St. Paul’s Cathedral in Oklahoma City and included many traditions, said the Rev. Dwight Helt, rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Norman. Helt attended the events surrounding the consecration this weekend.
Katharine Jefferts Schori, the first woman elected as the presiding bishop for the Episcopal Church USA, came to Oklahoma City to preside over the ceremony.
Read it all and note the Presiding Bishop was elected last June, not last November.
It was a beautiful service but poorly attended. There were between 1,000 and 1,200 people in attendance. The Daily Oklahoma reported that “about 3,000 people attended” which is the number of people who had been anticipated.
They were there in spirit ……
Or they used TEC’s method of counting attendance.
Blast. Again. I meant
They used TEC’s method of counting MEMBERSHIP.
🙄 Some days I just can’t type!
So that’s where she was yesterday… I wondered why our consecration (out here in Seattle) didn’t merit a Presiding Bishop. I guess Oklahoma outranks Washington 🙂
There [i]was[/i] no consecration in Oklahoma.
Washington was the beneficiary.
What’s the prognosis for Bp. Konieczny?
I understand that Bp. Moody was orthodox when elected and (despite being based in one of the most culturally conservative parts of the United States) took a revisionist flip along the way.
#6 HUH? What are you talking about? Check the link Kendall posted, from a local Oklahoma paper. I do think the good folks in OKC know whether or not the bishop in question was the Bishop of Oklahoma or the Bishop of Olympia.
There were TWO separate consecrations. Here’s a link to a story about the [url=http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/faithvalues/2003885340_bishop15m.html]Seattle consecration[/url]
Karen [#8]: I suspect Vincent Coles has drawn a conclusion from the gender or theology of the chief OKC consecrator.
Irenaeus–I listened to Konieczny’s interview, and he is in the revisionist camp, though he posits himself a reconciler between two camps. Yet he demonstrates that his perspectives are not founded finally in Scripture but in sociology, in telling that his turning point in his consideration of human sexuality was when his bishop sent him to CDSP, where he met faithful partnered homosexual persons. That, according to Konieczny, changed his mind about human sexuality.
#7 Moody definitely made an about face over the years. Unfortunately, he has also managed to run off many, if not most, of the orthodox clergy in the Diocese. I’m afraid the new man is firmly in the revisionist’s camp, also.
That’s right, #9. Anyone “consecrated” by the PB will have a hard time convincing anyone outside TEC/ACC that they are actually in episcopal orders. Why worry any longer what goes on in those dioceses? It’s not just [i]sede vacante[/i] but [i]ecclesia vacante[/i] as far as the wider world is concerned. The NOL gathering will not alter that.
#12:
Who, exactly, in the “wider world” are you referring to? The Roman Catholics don’t think much of our orders in any event. Denominations of a more Protestant bent don’t get the fuss about apostolic succession in the first place.
That would seem to leave people who believe Anglican orders are valid, but either (a) are Donatists and consider ++KJS so heretical that her sacramental acts are invalid, or (b) don’t believe in women’s ordination and so don’t consider her a bishop at all.
As for the latter crowd — who else was there to lay hands on the new Bishop of Oklahoma? Were there not at least three male bishops present? If there were — and I find it hard to believe that there were not — then I would think that our pro-Anglican-orders-but-anti-WO people would still be, perhaps grudgingly, convinced that the new bishop was, in fact, a bishop.
Or is ++KJS’s heresy and/or womanhood so noxious that it invalidates any sacrament she even touches?
There are so many problems about KJS that it is difficult to know where to begin. Perhaps it is better simply to say that she epitomises ALL that is wrong with TEC, and that in a short while TEC’s orders will not be acceptable in most of the Anglican Communion, along with its doctrine.
Do you actually know what a Donatist was?
It was a very lovely service and there was a wonderful sense of the Spirit at the moment of consecration, with the choir quietly chanting “Veni, creator” in ostinato. As noted, the tornado sirens positioned around the city went off at just that moment. At first, I thought it was a sound effect conveying a sense of the descending of the Spirit. Then I realized it was noon on Saturday — when sirens are tested. Funny, because the pitch played by the siren was exactly that of the “Veni, creator.”
Attendance could have been better, though I believe it was around 2,000 and not 1,200 as another poster suggested. This can be attributed to the rather early time, which may have discouraged some of our more far-flung congregants. Also, many were out worshiping the god of Fut Baal. And those who were not hampered by either may have been worried about game-day traffic on all roads leading to the blessed Cathedral of Owen Field in Norman.
Our prayers are with our new bishop. I expect him to be thoughtful, prayerful and deliberate.
Does anyone have a final list of the bishops in attendance? I don’t know many bishops simply by facial recognition, but I did know, for certain: ++KJS, +Moody, +Little, +O’Neill, +McAllister, +Ohl, +Howe, +Payne
Of course, that should have been “Veni, sancte spiritus,” not “Veni, creator spiritus.”
Bishop Jeffrey Steenson of the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande was there. As far as they attendance, there were 600 seats on the floor and they nearly full. The bleacher seats held 450 on the east side and the west side had less than half that number.