The Reverend Canon Leigh Aaron Kester, PhD, is the fifth rector of Saint Mary’s Anglican Catholic Church.

 

He grew up in Ravenna Township in Portage County, Ohio, about twenty-five miles from what would one day be St Mary’s Anglican Catholic Church (see the historical sketch of the parish on this website). Graduating from Ravenna High School in 1976, he received a bachelor’s and a master’s degree (1980, 1984) from Kent State University. He holds a Master of Arts in Religion (1982) with an emphasis in systematic and historical theology from Westminster Theological Seminary near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He holds a PhD in Tudor-Stuart/English Reformation history from Miami University of Ohio.

 

Dr Kester joined St Mary’s as a layman in 1997 and served as a vestryman, clerk, and layreader. Following his ordination to the diaconate and th priesthood in 2003, He served as deacon and then priest-in-charge in the Parish of St Thomas of Canterbury in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania, from 2003-2010. He was appointed canon to the ordinary in 2004 and  served as vicar general of the Diocese of the Resurrection (ACC) from 2007-2010. Following the death of friend and mentor, the Venerable Joseph E Dehart, Canon Kester began his tenure as incumbent on June 1, 2010, and was instituted as Rector by Bishop Starks (Bishop Ordinary of the Diocese of the Midwest, ACC) on July 25 of that year.

 

In 2011, Dr Kester was appointed by the Archbishop to serve as historiographer and archivist of the Original Province of the Anglican Catholic Church, and he serves in the same capacity in the Diocese of the Midwest (ACC). He also serves as a member of the diocesan commission for holy orders.