By Ruth Melville

On Sunday, June 2, Anne Frieze was ordained in the United Church of Christ (UCC) as a hospital chaplain and installed at Trinity Health Of New England.

For the past three years, Frieze has been providing hospice and spiritual care through Mercy Medical, based in Springfield, Mass., and part of Trinity Health. In addition to her work for Mercy Medical and Trinity, she also works per diem as a chaplain for Constellation Hospice, out of their offices in Wethersfield, Conn. She estimates that she’s put about 100,000 miles on her car in the last few years, driving to and from Middletown, Bloomfield, Bristol and East Berlin.

During this time she has been working toward ordination with the Litchfield North Association of the UCC. When she graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1986 she was planning on going into social justice work. Chaplaincy was the furthest thing from her mind, she says now, even though both her parents were nursing home chaplains ordained in the Presbyterian Church. But, she adds, “God has a wonderful way of having us come back to ourselves.”

After college Anne moved to Seattle, where she met and married Savage Frieze. Originally she worked as a pastoral counselor and a marriage and family therapist. It was while she was working for a secular agency as a geriatric mental health therapist in nursing homes that she got the call to go into chaplaincy. She started chaplaincy training in 2005 and served as a per diem chaplain for the Pacific Northwest Conference of the UCC for five years. The Friezes moved back to Norfolk in December 2011 when Savage was called to the North Canaan Congregational Church as its pastor.  

Officiating at the ordination service for the Litchfield North Association and the Connecticut Conference of the UCC were the Rev. Tamara Moreland, Conference Minister, and the Rev. Jackie Hall, of the Winchester Center Congregational Church. The Rev. Marcus McCullough, a colleague of Anne’s at Mercy Medical and an African Methodist Episcopal (AME) minister, preached. Liz Allyn played “Thank the Lord” on the organ, and Kitty Hickcox sang “He Shall Feed His Flock.” Anne gave the benediction, and Savage did the presentation of the stole.

It is particularly meaningful to Anne that John and Eve Thew and Doris and Orson Benedict were present at the service, since both couples also attended Savage’s ordination at the Norfolk Congregational Church in 1985.

Photo, top, of Anne and Savage Frieze with their daughter, Sara, on the steps of the North Canaan Congregational Church after the ordination service, by Tamara Moreland.