Story and photos by Georgiana Vines

The Rt. Rev. Brian Lee Cole of the Diocese of East Tennessee, who will preach the sermon at the consecration of the Rev. Austin Keith Rios as bishop coadjutor of the Diocese of California, is a person who reads richly and often speaks as a poet.

Those who attend the service at 11 a.m. May 4 at Grace Cathedral can expect Cole to make references to John’s Gospel where Jesus asks Peter if he loves him to feed His sheep.

And he also will have something to say about grace – since Cole preached the sermon when Rios was ordained a priest at Grace Church in Asheville, North Carolina, and now is preaching where Rios is being ordained a bishop at Grace Cathedral.

“A consecration sermon involves the person being consecrated but ultimately is for the people of the Diocese,” Cole said.

The two men have known each other from attending St. James Episcopal Church in Black Mountain, N.C., some 20 years ago. Cole said that sometime in 2000-01, Rios wanted to meet with him as part of his discernment in becoming a priest. They went to a coffee shop.

“At that point, neither of us were ordained as priests,” Cole said.

Cole, who is a native of southeast Missouri, is a 1989 graduate of Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky, with a B.S. degree in business administration. In 1992, he earned a Master of Divinity degree at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and had additional studies in Anglican Church History at the University of the South School of Theology, in Sewanee, Tennessee, in 2001.

Then in 2002, he was ordained and served as vicar at the Church of the Advocate, a worshiping community of the Diocese of Western North Carolina for the homeless in downtown Asheville, N.C. From 2002-2005, he studied liturgics in Asheville, and became sub-dean at The Cathedral of All Souls in Asheville in 2005, staying until 2012. He also pursued studies in art and prayer at General Theological Seminary in New York City in 2006.

In 2012, Cole became rector at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Lexington, Kentucky, where he served until being elected bishop of the East Tennessee Diocese in June 2017. His ordination and consecration as bishop was on Dec. 2, 2017. He has served on the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church and the Executive Committee of the Executive Council.

Besides his duties of overseeing 49 parishes and worshiping communities in East Tennessee and Northern Georgia and ordaining priests and deacons, Cole reads voraciously, particularly on the Appalachians as a region and culture, but certainly not exclusively. With his wife, Susan Weatherford, he leads a monthly book study at St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral in Knoxville and even gave a blessing at the annual Rose Glen Literary Festival in Sevierville, Tennessee, in February – his first at a literary festival, he said at the time.

Cole, 56, is very connected to Appalachia, a region of the country that some who don’t live there only see through negative stereotypes.

Before becoming a priest, he served for seven years on the staff of the Appalachian Ministries Education Resource Center in Berea, Kentucky. He has said much of the work there involved teaching seminarians; listening to Appalachian leaders, both in and out of the Church, and learning how to read and appreciate the culture of the region.

?He also has been an instructor in Appalachian Religion, Faith and Practices, and Appalachian Religion and Culture, at Warren Wilson College, Swannanoa, North Carolina; Wake Forest University School of Divinity in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota.

“For me, when a person encounters Appalachia, they end up seeing what they are looking for. If you want to find a people deeply connected to nature, with an agrarian spirit, you find it. If you want to find a people with fierce independence and self-reliance, you find it. If you want to find deep rural poverty and alienation, you find it. In many ways, Appalachia is a microcosm of the U.S.,” Cole said.

ishop Brian is interviewed April 11 in his office at the Diocesan House of the Episcopal Diocese of East Tennessee in Knoxville.

Cole and Rios have remained in touch as friends through their own moves and career advances. Cole indicated he wasn’t surprised that Rios was selected as the Diocese of California’s next bishop to succeed Bishop Marc Handley Andrus.?

“There is a joy to him that is palpable,” Cole said, referencing Rios’ work with refugees in Rome through an outreach center of St. Paul’s Within the Walls Episcopal Church, and other “hands on” experiences.

“He keeps an easy, joyful and somber curiosity about people. He’s good to listen and worry about other folks,” he said. “They (the Diocese) had very good choices (in the three candidates for a new bishop). It did not surprise me that there were good choices.”

Georgiana Vines is a retired Knoxville Tennessee News Sentinel associate editor. She is a member of St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral in Knoxville and a frequent congregant at St. Columba’s Episcopal Church in Inverness, Calif.

Author: Ellie Simpson