When Union trustee, The Very Rev. Winnie Varghese ’99 was announced as the 12th Dean of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in April of this year, it marked a deeply significant moment in the life of the Episcopal Church and the broader faith community. Her appointment as an out queer woman of Indian descent to one of the most visible and historic pulpits in the country was both groundbreaking and deeply personal. “As a young person,” she recalled in a recent conversation, “I would not have even guessed that I would ever have a paid job in the Episcopal Church.” And yet, by following her call with clarity, courage, and deep theological conviction, Varghese has become one of the most prominent religious voices for justice and inclusion in our time.
Her journey to the Cathedral began decades earlier at Union Theological Seminary, where she arrived in 1996 during a tumultuous period for LGBTQ+ people in the church. The Episcopal Church was still openly debating whether queer people should be ordained at all, let alone affirmed in their full humanity. “I assumed I was taking on the cost of my theological training just to be a volunteer,” she said. “Maybe I would go on to become an academic, or find some other practical way to support myself. But I felt called to ministry, even if the church couldn’t see a place for me.”
Union, however, did see her. It held space for her, as it had for so many others who came to Morningside Heights seeking more than a degree—they sought dignity, community, and transformation. Union’s classrooms, faculty, and ethos gave Varghese the freedom to imagine a future she had once thought unimaginable. “Union was full of people like me—people who couldn’t see a clear future in the paths they were on, but who came anyway because something in them said they had to.”
The list of Union faculty who shaped her formation reads like a theological hall of fame: James Cone, Dolores Williams, Phyllis Trible. “Nobody should take all those classes at once,” she laughed. “But I did.” Their teachings did more than educate her; they fortified her. These were not merely scholars; they were architects of liberation theology, voices that dared to claim that God sides with the oppressed, and that queerness, Blackness, womanhood, and every marginalized identity carry the imprint of the divine.
That ethos of radical affirmation—of challenging the norms of power, tradition, and exclusion—has defined Union’s legacy for generations. It is a place where LGBTQ+ students have not only been welcomed but empowered, and propelled to lead. Whether in the pulpit, the classroom, the community center, or the protest line, Union alumni have carried the seminary’s commitments into every corner of public life.
Varghese remembers the very first time she walked through Union’s doors, pausing just to look inside. Hugo, the Holocaust survivor who worked the front desk, gently encouraged her to come back the next day to visit admissions. That simple act of welcome became a defining moment. “I feel like Hugo invited me to think about going to Union,” she said. She did come back. And she stayed.
Even so, the path forward was never assured. “No one at the time was saying, ‘Winnie, you’re going to be a great priest.’ Not even my ordination committee in Los Angeles was sure.” But her professors at Union did see something else: a theological voice, a truth-teller, someone whose presence in the church could open doors for others. They urged her toward doctoral work, toward leadership, toward using her life to make change.
Over the years, that is exactly what she has done. From her early work as an Episcopal chaplain at Columbia University to parish ministry at St. Mark’s-in-the-Bowery in New York and St. Luke’s in Atlanta, Varghese has modeled a kind of leadership that is bold, pastoral, and rooted in justice. “Because I didn’t think I would have a career in the church, I wasn’t very strategic or cautious. I just said what I thought was true. That gave me a real freedom—a freedom I wish for everyone.”
That freedom, she insists, is what Union is all about. It is a place where students are formed to think critically, live authentically, and lead prophetically. It is a place that centers the voices that dominant cultures ignore. And during PRIDE Month, Varghese says, it is all the more vital to recognize that the church still carries a heavy responsibility. “Religion is often where people first learn that queerness is not okay. That’s true across so many traditions. So when our faith communities are affirming, we must be loud and clear about it. We cannot whisper it or apologize for it. It’s not optional. It is foundational to our faith.”
As Dean of the Cathedral, Varghese now leads a space that she hopes will be a sanctuary for the city—a place that both shelters and proclaims, that gathers the people and sends them out. She envisions the Cathedral not just as a house of worship, but as a public witness to the sacredness of every life. “There is always a child in the room who thinks they might fall outside of what the world will accept in them. We have to speak in a way that makes sure they know: God is with you.”
In an increasingly volatile political landscape, where rights for LGBTQ+ people are being rolled back across the country, Varghese says the time for faith leaders to act is now. “Fear tells us where the liberation is,” she said. “And Union has always formed people to walk into those fearful places—not recklessly, but faithfully.”
Looking back on her path, she says it was never a straight line. But it was guided by a deep trust in the Spirit, and in the communities who dared to believe in her before she believed in herself. Union was one of those communities. And that belief continues to ripple out in her ministry today.
“Union didn’t just prepare me for the church,” she said. “It prepared me to help shape it.”
This PRIDE Month, we honor the leaders like Dean Varghese who have helped shape a more just, inclusive, and liberating church. And we recommit ourselves to ensuring that Union will always be a place where LGBTQ+ people are not only welcomed, but empowered to lead.