As the Rev. Hilary Greer pursued a calling in the Episcopal Church, she had a few things in mind. She wanted a creative environment like an academic community, an opportunity to work on matters of social justice, and a close connection to people of faith.

Greer's path led her to St. Mark's Episcopal Chapel in Storrs. She came to St. Mark's this fall, shortly after her ordination on Sept. 10 at St. John the Divine Cathedral in New York City. Her role is priest-in-charge at St. Mark's and head of the parish and diocesan partnership for campus ministry at UConn.

“I never thought I'd find a parish like St. Mark's with an identity of reaching out to the community, recognizing the ministry is beyond the walls of the church, and to be willing to make the decisions and sacrifice to be able to do that,” Greer says.

Her entry into the clergy follows a career span in community organizing and service and hearkens to her life growing up as a preacher's kid. She says she realized, “Authentic transformation comes from partnership with God.”

In her first two months she has immersed herself into everything from budget planning to incorporating prayers from other parts of the world into the Sunday services. Right now she is leading the church community through Advent, a season of waiting for Christ's birth.

Service in Daily Life

Greer has always been interested in connecting the dots between community service and daily life. As a student and post-grad at Oberlin – she received her bachelor of arts in politics in 1996 – Greer worked in setting up cooperatives for student housing and dining and grew into linking the student experience to community effort. For example, a math class might use extensive modeling to reconfigure more efficient school bus routes in town.

“I think UConn does this a little more naturally because of its background as an agricultural school,” Greer says.

She worked as a director of an association of student cooperatives in the United States and Canada, and then for a passthrough agency to help private and public money find its way to the most promising non-profits and to help them operate well.

“Most places make grants for programs like a soup kitchen but not for staff or to keep the lights on to be able to come to the soup kitchen. My work was being part of a SWAT team if organizations were in crisis.”

Toward the Priesthood

In 2006 she became an interfaith chaplain in the trauma unit at a medical center in Pennsylvania. Then in 2008, with the support of her New York City diocese, she entered the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, and earned a master of Divinity in May 2011. Just before coming to St. Mark's, she served as transitional deacon at Grace Episcopal Church in Newton, MA.

Greer is already known at St. Mark's for her verbal qualities, whether preaching or ministering to parishioners one on one. She credits her upbringing and studies in an ecumenical environment and her parents -- her mother is a retired telephone executive, her father, a Presbyterian minister. So, Greer is used to standing up and talking on a subject.

“There's not the overall awe of clergy because you realize, 'that's just my dad talking,' and you realize, 'of course I can do that because it's just expected.'”

In this holiday season, she is especially reminded of people who grapple with grief during a joyful celebration. “This is the time of year when we can be particularly aware of the empty chairs at the table,” she says. A St. Mark's event she recommends is the Service of Light on Dec. 21, offering “a quiet time of remembrance and recognizing that we are preparing for Christ, a light that comes in the darkness, but not shutting our eyes to the darkness,” she says.

Mission Beyond Storrs

Greer has an abiding love of mission work, which has led her to continuing ministry with colleagues in India, Rwanda and the United States. In fact, after celebrating her first Christmas at St. Mark's, she leaves for Rwanda on Dec. 26 for two weeks. As a seminarian she learned the church will send its leaders to work for social justice in the world, and she saw the array of locations on a map in her teacher's office. She knew instantly she would want to travel but didn't know where. Then she heard Philbert Kalisa, Anglican priest and founder and director of Reach Rwanda, talk about his country, and the course was set. (Kalisa presented her for ordination in New York.)

Their focus is to help students and others make pilgrimages to Rwanda to study reconciliation in the wake of genocide and bring the lessons back to America. “We're not going there to put a roof on something,” Greer says.

At St. Mark's, Greer already feels at home. “There's a lot of creativity of thought as well as artistic creativity in the parish,” she says. She cites a human rights focus by parishioners, some on UConn's faculty; a former art teacher whose ministry is helping the parish make art, such as its Advent banners that adorn the chapel; and the rich music tradition that included the Rev. Carl P. Daw Jr., one of the shapers of the 1982 hymnal, the late Virginia Herrmann, longtime organist at St. Mark's and mastermind behind procuring its noted Brombaugh tracker organ, and the blended choir of college students and parishioners.

“It's just such a blessing to be in a place where the people are so wonderful...thinking through how they live their faith day to day and how they live it in the greater world,” she says.