Ceremony of Ordaining | Gabriel Bit-Babik '25 for Monitor
On July 27th, Reverend Edwin Dah Way was ordained at the Grace Episcopal Church in Utica. He is the first Karen refugee to become a minister within the Episcopal Church.
Describing the Karen community as “longing for native church leaders for decades,” Rev. Way said “my future plan is to continue to serve [the community] as their pastoral and spiritual leader, [more] officially and more effectively than before.”
The Karen people originally lived in Myanmar, where they faced decades of violence and oppression at the hands of the Burmese government. This led to the widespread migration of Karen people into Thai refugee camps, and, eventually, into permanent residences within countries including the US. Currently, there are more than 8,000 Karen people living in Utica.
For Rev. Way, becoming a member of the ministry meant learning not only about the “Episcopal Church’s canons, constitutions and rules,” but also navigating multiple languages and cultures. Rachel Ravellette, a representative of the Episcopal Church, stated “[In the past] people from different cultural backgrounds than the predominantly white and European culture who were called to serve in their communities had to leave those communities and cultures and be educated for ministry in…white, western spaces [seminaries]… [But Rev. Way] has been raised up by his community, for his community.”
Rev. Way comes from a family of clergy members and has spent decades as a volunteer church leader within the Karen community. He arrived at Utica through the Global Refuge (formerly known as the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service), from the Mae La refugee camp in Thailand, where he also served as a catechist and youth leader. In addition to his work within Utica, he has led ceremonies and rendered assistance to Karen people in Rochester, Syracuse, Buffalo and communities outside New York state. Rev. Way also organized the annual American Karen Episcopal Youth Day, where hundreds of Karen youths gather for collective worship and fellowship.
Over one hundred congregants attended Rev. Way’s ordination ceremony, declaring their support for him as their spiritual leader. Rev. Dede Duncan-Probe, Bishop of the Diocese of Central New York, formally accepted Rev. Way into the Sacred Order of Deacons, marking his entry into the ministry of the Episcopal Church. The service was conducted in both Karen and English, with readings presented by Rev. Way’s daughter Grace Way and his wife Day Moo.
Following his ordination, Rev. Way said that, in addition to serving the community, he planned to “work together with the vestry to learn more about the ordained ministry, the life of [an] ordained minister and to prepare for priesthood (upper rank of the ministry), if [it was] God’s [will]”
Formally honoring Rev. Way’s spiritual expertise and decades of service represents a shift away from a past embedded in colonialism and racial oppression- a past that the Episcopal church has begun to recognize and navigate.
In a 2006 set of resolutions, the Episcopal Church acknowledged its history of actively supporting, justifying and benefiting from slavery and segregation. In 2019, over a decade after this convention, the Episcopal Diocese of New York announced reparations worth $1.1 million, to address the harm wrought by slavery. The Diocese of Central New York (within which Grace Episcopal Church is located) sponsored a pilgrimage to the Legacy Museum in Alabama, for its congregants to learn about systemic racism and the ways in which it continues to influence America today.
The Episcopal church has also made efforts to protect the marriage and ordination rights of people across genders and sexual orientations. In recent times, it has publicly advocated for immigrant rights, climate justice, and anti-poverty measures.
Ceremony of Ordaining | Gabriel Bit-Babik '25 for Monitor
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