Fr. Peterson

The Reverend Ralph E. Peterson, D.D., is a priest of the Episcopal Church and has served for
forty-five years in ministry, his most recent posting being his service as Interim Rector at
Christ Church, Oyster Bay. A graduate of the University of Minnesota and Harvard, Father
Peterson studied Theology at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, and was ordained
a Lutheran Pastor. Father Peterson’s major service as a Lutheran was at St. Peter’s Church at
Citicorp Centre in Midtown Manhattan, where he gained international distinction for the
church’s innovative architecture and the parish’s ministry in jazz and the arts. He has held
the Henry Sloane Coffi n Chair of Bible at the Masters School in Dobbs Ferry, and has a long
interest in meditation and spiritual direction. Since becoming an Anglican priest, Father
Peterson has served in several Westchester parishes including St. James the Less, Scarsdale,
St. Mark’s, Mount Kisco, and Christ Church, Pelham. Father Peterson now chairs the Eastern
Churches Committee of the Ecumenical Commission for the Episcopal Diocese of New York.
He recently spent a month in Armenia during its celebration of 1700 years of Christianity.
He now lives in the Park View Apartments in Mount Vernon, and Shaker Ridge in Canaan,
New York. His wife Birgitta E. Peterson, M.D., is a pediatrician who practices in Chatham,
New York, and has served at New York-Cornell, and Yale-New Haven. She has taken up
weaving and life as a grandmother. Correspondingly, Fr. Peterson is enjoying his work with
the Orthodox Churches, his ministry in the Arts, and the joy of being a grandfather to
Frederik Charles Brunwin Peterson, who lives in London with Ralph and Birgitta’s son,
Kristofer, and his wife.