Posted on: Thursday, June 13, 2002

New St. Andrew's dean named

By Mary Kaye Ritz
Advertiser Religion & Ethics Writer

The Rev. Ann E.P. McElligott will take over as dean of St. Andrew's Cathedral on Sept. 10, relieving interim pastor the Rev. Rick Vinson.

McElligott, born in Minnesota, starts her duties as soon as she completes her term at an Australian seminary. Her appointment by Bishop Richard S.O. Chang comes two years after the Rev. Peter Courtney resigned as dean.

The challenge of running a cathedral is enormous — especially at the historic St. Andrew's, which dates back to King Kamehameha IV and Queen Emma, McElligott said. She said her first task is to "grow and deepen" the church, to help each member of the congregation develop his or her own discipleship.

"We'll grow in depth first and in numbers second," said McElligott, who received a master of divinity degree from the General Theological Seminary in 1984 and a doctorate in religious education from New York University in 1995.

When McElligott, 54, arrived at her last assignment, as principal of St. John the Evangelist Theological College in Morpeth, New South Wales, the Australian seminary was in the throes of a near-death experience.

"They had to make a decision whether to close or make one more run at it," she said, adding that at the time, only two students were continuing until the next academic year.

In the course of the seven years she spent as the only American head of a theological college in Australia and one of the first women to head an Episcopalian seminary, the situation turned around. The student population is up to more than 20 full-time students, and another 22 part-timers. The fiscal picture also improved.

Her first major, full-time appointment was a seven-year stint as associate rector at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Indianapolis.

When she arrived for her interview in May, McElligott said, she and her husband, Tom, a retired Episcopal minister, slipped into town early and took a circle-island tour on TheBus. "We didn't get the tour-guide sense of the isle ... that was a good introduction," she said.

Although not among the first Episcopalian women to be ordained in 1974, she was part of the "second generation," as she calls it, ordained in 1984. "By and large, I found throughout my ministry that being a woman has its advantage. People don't know what to expect, so you have a little wider scope of movement. Like being an American in Australia, I don't feel all the constraints."

• The Rev. Peter Courtney resigned as dean of St. Andrew's Cathedral in 2000. Because of a reporter's error, his last name was misspelled on a previous version of this story.