Two Denominations, Two States, One Priest

The Rev. Wendie Jekabsons, new priest-in-charge at the joint Lutheran-Episcopal congregation of The Savior, Newland, North Carolina, credits her “strange journey” and various twists in her secular and spiritual life with her new position in the small mountain parish.

She began working November fourth as a two-thirds time “pastor, priest and spiritual leader” in Newland; the other “third” allows her to celebrate alternating Sunday evening services at Unicoi and Mountain City, Tennessee, some 30 miles away.

Born in Canada and baptized an Anglican at age eight, she and her family moved to California when Jekabsons was 11. She moved to Tennessee 30 years ago with her husband, Evalds, a native of Latvia, and has been there ever since.

When the family moved to Tennessee, they chose St. Columba, a small church in Bristol where they still make their home.

For three years Jekabsons has been active in there in various capacities. In 1985 she was ordained to the diaconate.

She earned an undergraduate degree in philosophy with an emphasis on religious studies from East Tennessee State University, and later an M.A. degree in philosophy from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
She became the Episcopal chaplain at ETSU and an adjunct faculty member, teaching philosophy.

Jekabsons also served as deacon-in-residence at St. Columba, providing pastoral and administrative care to the small congregation for two-and-a-half years. She also went through the Education for Ministry program and spent two years in intentional study.

It was during this time that Bishop Tharp, and later Bishop vonRosenberg suggested and encouraged her to seek ordination to the priesthood.

After a year at the School of Theology of The University of the South, Wendie Jekabsons was ordained June 20, 2001 at St. Columba.

“Having been a philosophy professor gave me a larger perspective to be open to new ways of doing things,” she said.

She considers herself fortunate to have been at Sewanee when the Concordat (full communion between the Evangalical Lutheran Church of America and Episcopal Church USA) came into being.

All of this has helped prepare her for her new role in Newland. She celebrates the Episcopal service one Sunday and the Lutheran liturgy the next.

“There is no sense of division,” she says of the parish, which is comprised largely of retirement families. Some 40-50 attend Sunday services in the summer months, and about half that in the winter.

Jekabsons and her husband, Evalds, have three grown children and five grandchildren.

Reprinted from The Highland Episcopalian, the newspaper of the Diocese of Western North Carolina.