Nancy E. Krody

Nancy E. Krody was born in 1939 in Cincinnati, Ohio. She received a B.A. in political science and sociology from Ohio State University in 1960 and subsequently completed two years of course work toward an M.A. degree in sociology but did not complete a thesis. During this time, she was very active in the Baptist-Disciples Student Fellowship at Ohio State and in the statewide B.D.S.F. She had the pleasure of meeting John Lewis when attending an American Baptist student conference at Green Lake, Wisconsin, when he stopped by on his way to one of the protests in the South.

In 1962, Krody enrolled in Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, from which Martin Luther King, Jr., had graduated a decade earlier. She was the only woman student while at Crozer and ranked academically at the top of her second-year class. During Holy Week of 1964, she came out to a faculty-student group that was planning Crozer's upcoming centennial. Following this revelation, she was told to move out of student housing and to live off campus. Although she took a couple of courses the following year, she did not complete the academic program at Crozer. She notes that she could not afford to transfer to the only seminary that probably would have welcomed her at that time—Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Later in the ‘60’s Crozer merged with Colgate Rochester Divinity School in Rochester, New York, and she notes that it just announced the hiring of a faculty member to teach Queer theology at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School!

Krody then spent nine years working as a secretary in the national setting of the United Church of Christ’s Division of Christian Education in Philadelphia and joined a local UCC congregation in the mid-1960's because of its justice and ecumenical stances, thereby leaving the American Baptist Church of her birth. The first woman elder and consistory president of the congregation (St. Paul’s UCC, Springfield, Pennsylvania), she was very involved with racial and economic justice issues through the Philadelphia Association of the UCC and the wider church. St. Paul’s was involved with COCU in its early years and subsequently started meeting with congregations of other denominations when between pastors. In the early ‘70’s they became federated with a nearby Presbyterian congregation that was also seeking a pastor. This resulted in the two churches becoming a fully merged UCC-PCUSA congregation in 1975, Collenbrook United Church in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania (suburban Philadelphia). Krody was very involved with the merger and working out the details of two different forms of governance. Collenbrook celebrated its 50th anniversary in May, 2025!

Upon hearing of Bill Johnson's ordination in the UCC as an openly gay man, Krody contacted him through a mutual friend in 1972. Bill and Nancy, along with a gay layman and Bill’s “mother in love” (a straight woman ally during his ordination process) became the public face of the newly formed UCC Gay Caucus at the UCC General Synod in the summer of 1973 in St. Louis. Bill and Nancy served as the Caucus’s first co-coordinators. She handled the newsletter and treasury and occasionally was invited to speak with national UCC groups. Krody preached a "coming out" sermon in her home church during the following spring. In those early years, she notes that nearly all of the leaders of gay and lesbian religious groups knew one another, since there were so few persons able to be publicly identified. Krody was often the lesbian invited to speak to other gay religious groups to help them understand why lesbians were not breaking down the doors to get in, or she was invited to speak to national denominational meetings because other lesbians and gay men were unable to be publicly visible for fear of losing their jobs.

During this time, Krody was also involved in radical gay politics, particularly through the Susan Saxe Defense Fund and her trials. She also published Genesis III, the newsletter of the Philadelphia Task Force on Women in Religion, an interfaith group supporting women's roles in churches and synagogues, and, ultimately, lesbians' roles as well. When a national student magazine turned it down, Genesis III was able to publish Sally Gearhart’s article, “All the Church Needs Is a Good Lay—On Its Side!”

The UCC Coalition for LGBT Concerns (Open and Affirming Coalition) subsequently moved on to other leadership, and Krody turned to other pursuits with a partner who was not supportive of her involvement in gay/lesbian movements. Her involvement with the church continued at all levels—local congregation, Association, Conference, and national UCC boards and committees. In May 1977, Krody co-facilitated the first retreat for lesbian and gay Christians at the Kirkridge Retreat Center, along with John McNeill and Malcolm Boyd. When the UCC offices moved to New York City in 1973, and subsequently to Cleveland, she needed to find other work, ending up at Temple University at the Journal of Ecumenical Studies (first as an editorial assistant and ultimately as managing editor), from 1973 to 2018.

In recent years Krody has re-engaged in LGBT religious movements. She was the co-coordinator of the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference chapter of the UCC Coalition since its beginning in the 1970s--encouraging congregations to become Open and Affirming and representing LGBT concerns at Conference meetings. Ecumenically, she was active in the YES! Coalition, which grew out of the first ecumenical LGBT Christian conference (Witness Our Welcome 2000) and which subsequently helped host the second WOW Conference in 2003 in Philadelphia. She served on the Council of the YES! Coalition as treasurer and was on the planning group for Out and Faithful, an interfaith program of the William Way LGBT Center in Philadelphia, while it existed. Krody was honored with "pioneer"t; awards at the 1991 General Synod of the UCC and at the UCC Gay and Lesbian Coalition's Gathering in 2004.

Her life partner was Pat Szabo, M.D., from 1999 until Pat’s death in October, 2017. They bought a home together in Marple Township, Pennsyvania (Delaware County) and were able to be married on December 27, 2014.

In retirement, Krody has continued pro bono to copyedit manuscripts for the Journal of Ecumenical Studies and is the English-language proofreader for the quarterly Reporter (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change). A member of the LGBTQ Religious Archives Network Advisory Team, she serves on the boards of the Dialogue Institute (which now publishes the Journal) and the North American Academy of Ecumenists. She is the clerk of Collenbrook United Church and is registrar and secretary/treasurer of the Philadelphia Association of the UCC. In 2024–25, she has been involved in the governance task force for the Keystone Conference of the UCC, which will merge the four current Conferences across the state, beginning in January, 2026.

(This biographical statement provided by Nancy E. Krody.)

Biography Date: March 2006; rev. July 2022' & August 2025

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