Meet The Rev. Dr. Regina Christianson

Come please join our services and listen to her uplifting homilies.

The Rev. Dr. Regina Christianson grew up in a military family, one of five girls.  Her father was a doctor in the army so they moved often – Panama, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, D.C., Maryland, Pennsylvania, Japan, and South Korea were called “home” at various times.  Both of her parents had been professional musicians.  With all that upheaval, she found three things to be her anchors – family, music, and church.  Even as a kindergartener she knew she was going to be a teacher, a harpist, and a nun.  When she was old enough, she became all three as a member of the Community of the Holy Spirit, a religious Order within the Episcopal Church, teaching at St. Hilda’s and St. Hugh’s School, NYC.   While there, she felt called to the deaconate and to the priesthood, but, given the unsupportive situation, she couldn’t do anything but wait and hope for things to change.  When, after 16 years, she burned out and left the Order and school, Regina started teaching private music lessons in NYC and was a professional musician, performing throughout the Tri-State area.  It was in a NYC church choir that she met her future spouse, Stephen Whiteley, also a professional musician.  Stephen, a flutist friend, and Regina formed an acoustic ensemble, Gryphon & Co., to perform Celtic and Early Music.  In 1994, she accepted the invitation to become the Harpist-in-Residence at the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, VT.  While in Vermont, she was able to start the ordination process and go to seminary, the Episcopal Divinity School, in Cambridge, MA.  She felt a keen desire to give pastoral and sacramental care to the vulnerable and to those who could not come to church, particularly those with mental illness, so she trained to be an interfaith chaplain with a specialty in crisis and mental health.  After ordination, she served as supply priest or priest-in-charge for several rural parishes in Vermont.  She also became certified to do interfaith spiritual direction and teaching meditation.  Now, in Maine, she serves as supply priest throughout the diocese and as a hospice, nursing home, and hospital chaplain for St. Joseph’s Hospital, Bangor. Regina and Stephen continue to perform and teach when opportunity arises.