Katrina D. Foster was born and raised in northeast Florida. She earned a B.A. in Religion/Philosophy and Sociology from Newberry College in Newberry, S.C. She then earned a Masters of Divinity from the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary in Columbia, S.C. She earned a Doctorate of Ministry from the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia in May 2008, focusing on Stewardship and Luther’s Theology of the Cross.

Rev. Dr. Katrina Foster was ordained Dec. 4, 1994 by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. She has served Fordham Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Bronx from November 1994 to June 2010. During her pastorate she has served as the chair of the Lutheran HIV/AIDS Education and Prevention Task Force and the Bronx Clergy Task Force, a board member of the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, a clergy liaison for the 46th precinct, a panelist for the Heartland Presidential Forum questioning then Senator Barack Obama’s plans for health care reform, former Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrión, Jr.’s community representative for the development of the Kingsbridge Armory, a member of the Kingsbridge Armory Redevelopment Alliance, and the Dean of the Bronx Conference from 2002 to 2009.

Pastor Foster was the recipient of the Bronx Borough President’s Citation of Merit in 2000 and 2004. She was awarded the NAACP’s Women Who Make a Difference Award in 2001. In 2007 the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America recognized Pastor Foster’s unique stewardship gifts by awarding her the Dr. Richard Lee Peterman Good Steward Award in 2007.

At the ELCA Churchwide assembly in 2007 Pastor Foster came out on the floor of the gather where she was serving as a voting member. In doing so Pastor Foster faced the real possibility of being defrocked. In 2009 Pastor Foster, her partner Pamela Kallimanis and their daughter Zoia were featured in a documentary, One Baptism, Many Gifts: A Story of Three Lutherans Called to Ministry which was distributed to all the voting members of the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly. At that assembly the policy toward gay pastors with families was changed to recognize the call of these pastors and to recognize their families.

July 1, 2010 Pastor Foster began serving Incarnation and St. Michael’s Lutheran Churches in the Hamptons Lutheran Parish on the East End of Long Island.

Pastor Katrina Foster lives with her wife, Pamela Kallimanis, and their daughter Zoia, a dog named Meemo, two cats, two guinea pigs and a turtle in the Hamptons.

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