A Luthern pastor from Virginia opened the United States Senate with prayer this morning. Pastor Katie Pocalyko of Lutheran Church of Our Saviour in Chesterfield County delivered the opening prayer this morning at the invitation of Sen. Mark Warner. She’s no stranger to the U.S. Capitol: in 2004, she was selected to serve as a Senate page by Sen. John Warner.   

Pastor Pocalyko, an eighth generation pastor, has been a lifelong ELCA Lutheran. She attended Princeton University and Yale Divinity School, and part of her pastoral training occurred at St. Mark Lutheran Church in Luray.

Light-hearted moment of Ivy League rivalry between Pastor Pocalyko, Yale Divinity School 2013 and Senator Warner, Harvard Law School 1980. 

She was accompanied to Washington today by her husband, her parents Michael and Barbara and her mother and father-in-law.