New deacon the Rev. Edwin Way (top left) is joined by Central New York Bishop DeDe Duncan-Probe (center), his wife Day Moo (front left), his daughter Grace (front right) and the Rev. Christine Williams-Belt, rector of Grace Church in Utica, New York (top right). Photo: Rachel Ravelette
[Episcopal News Service] Edwin Win, of Grace Church in Utica, New York, became the first member of a Karen community in The Episcopal Church to be ordained when he was made a transitional deacon by Central New York Bishop DeDe Duncan-Probe.
The Karen people are an ethnic group who have lived in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, for more than 2,000 years. Many Karen fled their homeland in the last 30 years because of the government’s religious and ethnic persecution. Win, the son of an Anglican priest in the Diocese of Hpa-an, and his family were among those who fled, landing first in a refugee camp in Thailand, where he served as a youth leader and catechist.
He came to the United States in September 2007 as a refugee within the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Service. He was settled in Utica with the help of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, one of the 10 U.S. resettlement partners, which also includes Episcopal Migration Ministries. Utica now is home to about 15,000 refugees, about 8,000 of whom are Karen, Rachel Ravellette, communications director for the diocese, told Episcopal News Service.
The Rt. Rev. John Wilme, the retired bishop of the Diocese of Toungoo in the Church of the Province of Myanmar, assisted Duncan-Probe during the late July ordination service, and the Rev. Winfred Vergara, The Episcopal Church’s former Missioner for Asiamerica Ministries, preached. The service included a Kare interpreter from a local Baptist church, and the service booklet was bilingual.
At Grace Church, the Karen community makes up half the congregation, the Rev. Christine Williams-Belt, Grace’s rector, told ENS. Win said in an introduction page on the diocesan website that since joining the church, he has tried his best to serve the Karen community, first as a spiritual leader and then as a catechist, offering prayer services, visiting people and engaging in other ministries. He can carry on those duties as a deacon but can’t consecrate bread and wine for Communion until he is priest, which will be in about six months.
He also has organized the annual American Karen Episcopal Youth gatherings, bringing together hundreds of young people from Karen communities across New York and other states for three days of worship, Bible study, lecture, games and fellowship.
Priests are very influential within area Karen communities, Williams-Belt said, and having Win, who will eventually transition from a deacon to an ordained priest, means The Episcopal Church can serve them better. Many of her Karen members, including Win, aren’t fluent in English, so having services in their native language, S’gaw Karen, will be a spiritual boost.
Win is married to Day Moo, and they have a daughter Grace. A son, Abraham, died in 2020.
There currently are 20 Episcopal churches with large Karen communities, Vergara, told ENS. Some of the largest ones are in Minnesota, and he said he joked with Duncan-Probe and Minnesota Bishop Craig Loya about which one would ordain the first Karen clergyperson.
Karen Episcopal communities long had hoped for their own clergy. “Today, your dream has come true,” he said during his July 27 sermon.
All Saints in Smyrna, Tennessee was the first to serve a large Karen population. It was the subject of a 2017 feature-length movie, with John Corbett portraying the Rev. Michael Spurlock, a white priest who welcomed Karen people into the then- dying church.
Finding an inclusive path to ordination
Win’s path to ordination wasn’t an easy one, given that he isn’t fluent in English, Duncan-Probe said. But, Vergara created a one-year formation course for Karen leaders, including Win, that covered liturgy, theology and ecclesiology. He drew on faculty from Virginia Theological Seminary to help create it, he said, along with a team of translators.
From this, several Karen catechists were developed. In Myanmar, Vergara said, catechists are held in high regard, “almost like a mini priest,” because of the leadership and services they provide.
Duncan-Probe and others in the diocese have worked hard to find ways to overcome language barriers that Win has faced in his path toward ordination, she said. “There’s not an accommodation for him to take the GOEs (General Ordination Exams), so we’re constructing that. When you have a first, sometimes we don’t have the infrastructure prepared for that.”
Noting that The Episcopal Church was formed out of “colonial empire,” she said that even some beloved institutions can be dehumanizing. “Part of being church in this time, and continuing to live into our baptismal covenant, is identifying those moments when we need to find a new way to have a good process that is accommodating to him and also prepares him in ways that are necessary for ordained ministry in a hierarchical church.”
Duncan-Probe noted that Win and other Central New York Karen Episcopalians carry the trauma of fleeing their homeland and time spent in refugee camps, but they show resiliency in finding a way to a new life in the United States. Win is working to learn English, she said, and she has tried to master some phrases in S’gaw Karen.
“It’s important that if we’re going to say we’re inclusive, that we actually are transformed by it,” she said.
— Melodie Woerman is an Episcopal News Service freelance reporter based in Kansas.