Father Connelly did his undergraduate work at the University of North Carolina and then earned an MBA at the Columbia Business School. After an eighteen-year career with Owens-Illinois, he spent fifteen years engaged in various entrepreneurial endeavors. As a layman he was involved in a wide variety of ministries in several Episcopal churches including serving as a Vestryman and Senior Warden of St. John’s Church and as a Trustee of St. John’s School. He was graduated from The General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church with a Master’s Degree in Divinity and returned to St. John’s after being ordained by Bishop Smith in 2007.
