
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, January 15, 1994                   TAG: 9401150118
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV3   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: Frances Stebbins Staff Writer
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG                                 LENGTH: Medium

BLACKSBURG CHURCH NAMES A NEW RECTOR

The Rev. Clare Fischer-Davies will become rector of Christ Episcopal Church late next month.

Reared in Clifton Forge, she entered the ministry from Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Covington, but has been serving parishes in the north for the past 10 years.

Fischer-Davies, 37, will succeed the Rev. Martin Townsend, who left Christ Episcopal 17 months ago after being elected bishop of a Maryland diocese. Since then the congregation has been served by the Rev. Michael Thompson, a former Radford rector, who will conclude his work on Feb. 6.

Fischer-Davies will begin her ministry on Feb. 27. She is coming from Manchester, N.H., where she has been assistant rector of Grace Episcopal Church. She and her husband, Gerald, a journalist, have two children, Andrew, 4, and Mary, 2.

The rector-elect is a graduate of Stuart Hall preparatory school in Staunton and prepared for a career in opera by attending the New England Conservatory of Music.

Following her graduation in 1977, she sang professionally for two years.

In 1979 she enrolled in the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., and served an internship at St. John's Episcopal Church of Roanoke. Upon her ordination to the priesthood in 1983, she joined the staff of St. Luke's Church in Metuchen, N.J.

After three years at the New Jersey Church, Fischer-Davies became rector of St. Andrew's Church in Tamworth, N.H., and remained there for four years before going to Manchester.

The choice of Fischer-Davies as rector for the Blacksburg church, which was announced this week by Gino Iannaccone, the senior warden of the parish, comes after a search of a year in which more than 140 resumes were considered.

As a woman in charge of a parish, Fischer-Davies will join a dozen other ordained women serving congregations in the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia. Bishop A. Heath Light noted that only one woman priest was active in the diocese 15 years ago. More than one-fifth of the diocesan congregations now are served by ordained women.

by CNB