It is likely to be a grand show.
More than 2,000 people, including a procession of 200 local clergy, are expected at Meydenbauer Center to attend the ordination and consecration of the Rev. Gregory Rickel as the eighth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Olympia.
Rickel, 44, who was most recently rector of a church in Austin, Texas, succeeds Bishop Vincent Warner, who is retiring after 18 years as head of the Episcopal Church in Western Washington.
“This whole thing is nothing you train for or plan for — you can’t,” Rickel said in an interview earlier this month. “This mantle — it’s daunting.”
Indeed, beyond the grandeur of the ordination ceremony, there are big challenges ahead for Rickel.
Janet I Tu of the Seattle Times has the whole story.