Presiding Bishop Michael Curry

The Most Rev. Michael Bruce Curry is Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church. He is the Chief Pastor and serves as President and Chief Executive Officer, and as Chair of the Executive Council of The Episcopal Church. He was installed as the 27th Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church on November 1, 2015. He was elected to a nine-year term and confirmed at the 78th General Convention of The Episcopal Church in Salt Lake City, UT, on June 27, 2015. Throughout his ministry, Presiding Bishop Curry has been active in issues of social justice, reconciliation, speaking out on immigration policy and marriage equality.

The descendant of enslaved Africans brought to North America by way of the trans-Atlantic slave routes, Presiding Bishop Curry was born in Chicago, IL, on March 13, 1953. His father was an Episcopal priest, who, with his mother and grandmother, grounded him in Christian beliefs and practices through their example and their teachings. He attended public schools in Buffalo, NY, and, even at a young age, he learned about social activism through his father’s leadership and his own dedication to righting a broken world. He graduated with high honors from Hobart College in Geneva, NY, in 1975. He received a Master of Divinity degree in 1978 from Yale University Divinity School in New Haven, CT.
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He was ordained to the diaconate in June 1978, at St. Paul’s Cathedral, Buffalo, NY, and to the priesthood in December 1978, at St. Stephen’s, Winston-Salem, NC, where he began his ministry as deacon-in-charge in 1978 and was rector from 1979-1982. He next accepted a call as rector at St. Simon of Cyrene, Lincoln Heights, OH, serving from 1982-1988. In 1988 he was called to become rector of St. James’, Baltimore, MD, where he served until his election as the 11th Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina in February 2000.

In his three parish ministries in North Carolina, Ohio, and Maryland, Presiding Bishop Curry had extensive involvement in preaching missions; Crisis Control Ministry; the founding of ecumenical summer day camps for children; preaching missions; the Absalom Jones initiative; creation of networks of family day care providers; creation of educational centers; and the brokering of millions of dollars of investment in inner-city neighborhoods.

As Bishop in the Diocese of North Carolina, Presiding Bishop Curry instituted a network of canons, deacons, and youth ministry professionals dedicated to supporting the ministry that happens in local congregations. He refocused the Diocese on The Episcopal Church’s Millennium Development Goals through a $400,000 campaign to buy malaria nets that saved over 100,000 lives. He is married to the former Sharon Clement, and they have two adult daughters, Rachel and Elizabeth.