Rena Weller Karefa-Smart, international ecumenical leader, dies at age 97
She was the first black woman to graduate from Yale Divinity School, to receive a doctorate in theology from Harvard Divinity School, and to receive tenure at Howard Divinity School.
Yale Divinity School dean Greg Sterling (left) presents Rena Weller Karefa-Smart (right) with the Lux et Veritas award in 2017. Yale Divinity School.
Rena Weller Karefa-Smart, global ecumenical leader and scholar, died January 9 at age 97.
“She was a champion for global ecumenism over the course of a long and distinguished career,” the World Council of Churches noted in a tribute. “One of her proudest achievements was becoming a living symbol of ecumenism with her joint ordination as an African Methodist Episcopal Zion minister and Episcopal priest.”
Karefa-Smart was a consultant for the WCC’s first assembly in 1948 and authored the liturgies for the second in 1954.
