Rev. Phoebe Roaf was consecrated on Saturday May 4th, 2019 at Hope Church in Memphis, Tennessee. She was ordained by Chief consecrator Rev. Michael Curry, the first African American presiding Bishop of the Episcopal church. She is the fifth black female bishop in the history of the Episcopal Church, but the first in the South at age 55.
Born in Arkansas, Rev. Roaf has experience in the Episcopalian Church being a fourth generation Episcopalian. Being that she grew up with a predominantly male clergy, she mentioned she never imagined being in the position she is in now. The Episcopal Church is the American branch of the global Anglican community at about 1.7 million members.
As a graduate of the University of Arkansas, Harvard, and Princeton with research and a law degree, she began her work in the ministry in the start of her 40’s. She became the first Black woman ordained as an Episcopal Priest in Louisiana after studying and graduating from Virginia Theological Seminary in 2008. She has served in New Orleans and Virginia. Consequently, she said at her consecration, “As the first Black woman to serve as an Episcoal Bishop south of the Mason- Dixon Line, there are great expectations surrounding my tenure.”