Ahrens, 44, was elected March 10 and is the first woman elected bishop in Connecticut. At the time, she became the 14th woman elected to the House of Bishops. Since then, she has been joined June 15 by the Ven. Mary Gray-Reeves who was elected bishop of the Diocese of El Camino Real (http://www.edecr.org/) June 16.

Connecticut Bishop Andrew D. Smith, Connecticut Bishop Suffragan James E. Curry, New York Bishop Suffragan Catharine Roskam and Olympia Bishop Vincent Warner will join Jefferts Schori as consecrators during the service at Woolsey Hall, a concert auditorium in New Haven.

Warner was rector of St. Andrew's in Wellesley, Massachusetts, Ahren's church while growing up and the church that sponsored her from priestly ordination and later ordained her a priest.

A number of other Province I bishops are expected attend as well as Connecticut's 12th and 13th bishops, Arthur E. Walmsley and Clarence N. Coleridge.

Connecticut has a companion diocese relationship with the Diocese of Colombia and Bishop Francisco Duque Gomez is expected to attend. Bishop-elect Robert Gillies of the Diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney in Scotland is expected to be present also. The Diocese of Connecticut has maintained a relationship with the Diocese of Aberdeen since the consecration of Samuel Seabury, the first bishop of the Episcopal Church, in its cathedral in 1784.

Ahrens' parents, Herbert and Joan Ahrens, and her fiancé, Robert Fawber, and his children, Annie, Bryan, and Lindsay, will be the oblation bearers.

Several groups of children will join the procession with banners they have made, including one group from St. Luke's Parish, Darien, Connecticut, where Ahrens served as associate rector before accepting the position of rector at St. James' Episcopal Church, Danbury, Connecticut, where she's been since 2000.