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Youngstown native to serve as priest at Canton church

YOUNGSTOWN — The Rev. Robin Woodberry, deacon-in-charge of St. Paul Episcopal Church in Canton, will be ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church at St. Paul’s at 10 a.m. on June 3.

The Right Rev. Mark Hollingsworth Jr., bishop of the Diocese of Ohio, will officiate.

Upon ordination, Woodberry will become priest-in-charge of the downtown Canton church she has been serving for the past year.

Woodberry is a native of Youngstown who was licensed as a minister in the Baptist tradition in 1995 and ordained 10 years later at New Bethel Baptist Church. She holds a doctor of ministry degree from the Southern Bible Institute and Seminary in Augusta, Ga. She is the former nominating chairperson for the National Board of Church Women United and executive director of the Mahoning Valley Association of Churches.

Woodberry became a member of the Episcopal Church in 2017, and began her seminary studies at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, Calif. She completed her field studies at Christ Church Hudson before being ordained last May as a transitional deacon (a step toward the priesthood) and coming to St. Paul’s. She has completed her studies at Bexley Seabury Seminary in Chicago, has been elected to the Episcopal Community Services Committee and serves on the church’s Commission for Racial Understanding.

In Stark County, she is involved with the Interfaith Violence Prevention Coalition and the Interfaith Clergy Study Group.

Woodberry and her husband of 37 years, Anthony, have five children and are grandparents to six. Her mother, the Rev. Gena Thornton, is also an ordained minister.

St. Paul is one of the oldest churches in Canton, celebrating 154 years at the same corner of Cleveland Avenue and Fifth Street SW and the 100th year of its current sanctuary.

The Episcopal Diocese of Ohio includes 79 parishes throughout northern Ohio and is part of the worldwide Anglican Communion.

Clergy of all denominations are invited to process and wear white robes and red stoles for the ordination, which will be followed by a reception in the St. Paul’s Guild Hall at 425 Cleveland Ave. SW in Canton.

news@vindy.com

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