Nicholas Knisely

I am the Dean of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Phoenix AZ. I moved to Phoenix from Bethlehem PA where I was the Rector of Trinity Church in the city of Bethlehem.

In 2003 and 2006 I was elected by the people of the Diocese of Bethlehem to serve as a Deputy to The General Convention of the Episcopal Church. At General Convention in 2003 I was the recording secretary of the World Mission Legislative Committee. After that convention I was appointed/elected the Chair of the Standing Commission on Episcopal Church Communication and will serve on that body until 2009. I served on the Communications Legislative Committee at the 2006 General Convention. I have been elected to serve from Arizona in the coming 2009 convention in Anaheim.

I was invited to serve on the Dialogue team of Moravians and Episcopalians here in the United States. We are moving forward to full communion between these two denominations. We expect that the agreement between the two denominations will be approved by the Episcopal Church at the General Convention in Anaheim this coming summer.

My training is as a priest is somewhat unusual. I did my undergraduate degree in Physics and Astronomy at Franklin and Marshall College. I did my graduate studies at the University of Delaware in Cosmology and Solid State Physics. I then left the world of Physics and studied at Yale and Berkeley Divinity Schools from which I received my theological degrees.

For the past 6 years or so I have been teaching Astronomy and Physics at Lehigh University as an adjunct in addition to what I've mentioned above. Now that I'm Arizona, I'm going to have to find new ways to stay up-to-date in Astronomy and Physics.