The Rev. Patricia Lull, Bishop

Patricia J. Lull has been the bishop of the Saint Paul Area Synod since July 1, 2014. A native of Fremont, Ohio, she received her undergraduate degree from the College of Wooster and her Master of Divinity from Yale University Divinity School. Ordained in 1979, she has served in two congregations – St. Paul American Lutheran Church in Alpena, Mich., and Christ Lutheran Church in Athens, Ohio. With a background in Lutheran Campus Ministry, she also served as the national director for Lutheran Campus Ministry for the ELCA from 1999-2001. A call to serve as Dean of Students at Luther Seminary brought her to Minnesota in early 2001. Over the past 20 years she has served at Luther Seminary, Augsburg University and the St. Paul Area Council of Churches.

Bishop Lull serves as the co-chair for the current Lutheran-Catholic Dialogue in the U.S. She served as the chair of the drafting team for the ELCA’s Inter-Religious Policy Statement, adopted by the Churchwide Assembly in 2019. Her theological interests include the history of religious life in America, the future shape of congregational life, and global and inter-religious interpretations of the four Gospels.

She enjoys reading contemporary fiction, all murder mysteries in ecclesiastical settings, the unending challenges of taming a perennial garden bed, and working with papier-mâché sculptures. Stranded on a desert isle with only one food source, she would choose Extra Toasty Cheez-Its. She believes a day is better lived if she walks 10,000 steps, preferably outdoors in the elements of the four seasons.


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