The Dean's Page

the Dean and Rector

The Very Rev. G. Thomas Luck has been Dean and Rector of St. Paul's Cathedral since February 2004. Tom has a father who is a priest, a mother who is a deacon, a wife who is deacon, and a sister who is a priest whose husband is a priest whose father is a priest. Nevertheless, he is not as boring as you might think!

Baptized in Philadelphia, Confirmed in the Diocese of Ft. Worth, Ordained in the Diocese of Dallas, and a former member of the Standing Committee and General Convention Deputy in New Hampshire, Tom has experienced first-hand the breadth of life in the Episcopal Church. Tom has been in parish ministry for over twenty-five years, including a large suburban parish in Texas, a struggling mill city in New Hampshire, and an affluent coastal suburb in Maine. In each of these congregations Thomas has overseen significant transitions in parish identity and culture.

Tom has twenty years of experience serving as a spiritual director for individual clergy. He has led numerous retreats for Vestries, and now serves on the Standing Committee, the Committee on the Continuing Education of the Clergy, the Finance Committee, the Global Mission Committee and the Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation Committee of the Diocese of Central New York. He was a Deputy to General Convention from the Diocese in 2006 and will be again in 2009. He also serves the wider Church by being a Chaplain to the Clergy Leadership Project, a program of Trinity Church/St. Paul’s Chapel in New York City at the Trinity Conference Center in West Cornwall, CT.

In Syracuse Tom serves on the Boards of the Samaritan Center, the Hunger Project, Bridges Out of Poverty and the Circles Project. He is also a member of the Onondaga Civic League and the Thursday Morning Roundtable.

Thomas received the Bachelor of Arts degree from Austin College in British Studies and Philosophy, which included a semester in London where he served as a volunteer Social Worker at the Social Services Unit of St. Martin-in-the-Fields on Trafalgar Square. While in England he met Michael Ramsey, 100th Archbishop of Canterbury, under whom he subsequently studied for the priesthood at Nashotah House. He is licensed by the Association for Psychological Type to administer the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. In 2008 Thomas was awarded the Master of Liberal Arts degree in Religion from Harvard with a thesis titled, "The Gospels and the End of Poverty: A Biblical Mandate for the Millennium Development Goals."

For recreation Thomas enjoys music, golf, hiking, camping, and cooking. He and his wife, the Reverend Canon Deacon Jane Luck, have three children; Shannon who works in Syracuse, Ian at the University of Maine, and Ryan who is at SUNY Plattsburgh. Thomas' and Jane's favorite pastime is babysitting their granddaughter, Serenity.

St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral