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On Saturday, Sept. 9, the Diocese of Kentucky celebrated the ordinations of its two newest priests, Ellen Poole Ekevag and Amy Real Coultas, at Christ Church Cathedral in Louisville. Both women can be seen as the diocese’s “daughters”: they grew up attending Episcopal churches in the Louisville area, graduated from seminary this spring and are already deeply involved in the ministries they began at the start of the summer as deacons.
Ekevag, who was baptized as a baby at St. Francis in the Fields, Harrods Creek, grew up at Christ Church Cathedral. Since her graduation from Virginia Theological Seminary, she has been learning about servant ministry dividing her time among congregations in Fulton, Hickman and Paducah.
Coultas’s spiritual journey had taken her from St. Paul’s, Louisville, to the experimental mission, Good Samaritan in eastern Jefferson County, and then to the Church of the Advent, Louisville. Graduated from General Theological Seminary in New York, she has taken on a dual role of vicar of St. James’, Shelbyville, and Episcopal chaplain at the University of Louisville.
The Rev. Paul Jeanes addressed the ordinands and the congregation, gathered from all corners of the diocese, by first assuring everyone that priests, even bishops, are neither magicians nor miracle workers. The new priests, he said, would be “butterflies in a ‘hummer world’, a ‘bulldozer world’.” Likening human efforts to the ‘butterfly effect’ of chaos theory, he said, “An individual, even a priest, has no power to bring about change. She is only one soul, but she can set in motion a transformative chain of events the same way the movement of a butterfly’s wings in China may influence a tornado in Kansas.”
“In the midst of chaos and busyness,” Jeanes told the new priests, “We are called to share God’s grace. …You don’t need to save the world. Just stir the winds of Grace…. There’s nothing magical about what priests do. It is what everyone does or should do. Stir the breeze.”
Addressing the larger congregation Jeanes added, “Lay people can and should do all this too. Priests are simply more visible. Ordination puts them in the spotlight.”
Following the ordination, the new priests and the congregation, in a festive mood enhanced by the music of the choir, trumpet and organ, proceeded to a lavish reception in Bishops’ Hall. Present not only were people from the parishes where Coultas and Ekevag grew up and those they now serve, but also classmates from their recently completed seminary years.
