Chapel Dean to Be Installed
Ceremony to include feet-washing
The Rev. Canon Dr. Samuel Wells will be installed as dean of Duke Chapel by President Richard H. Brodhead in a special 11 a.m. worship service this Sunday, Sept. 25.
The service and a celebratory lunch on the chapel grounds to be held following the ceremony are open to the public.
The installation service will include the giving of the symbols of ministry to Wells from Divinity School professor Stanley Hauerwas, Assistant Chapel Dean Craig Kocher and others. Wells will also wash the feet of 12 people, including: Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans, the great-granddaughter of university namesake Washington Duke; William Bell, the mayor of Durham; and Duke Divinity professor Willie Jennings.
"This gesture is saying that this chapel and this dean are here to obey the command of Jesus, in washing people and bringing them to new life, in breaking bread and sharing the companionship of God, and in humble, sometimes humiliating acts of loving service," Wells said of the footwashing.