Rev. Aileen Fitzke, Minister

Rev. Aileen Fitzke joined UUCR as our settled Minister in August 2023.

Rev. Aileen has previously served as the settled minister at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Sterling, Virginia, just down the road from us. She is already familiar with our local neighborhood and is actively involved in regional interfaith and social justice work. 

Rev. Aileen is a full fellow of the Unitarian Universalist Association. Although called to the ministry later in life, she has always been interested in religion and worship and spent many years serving as a religious education volunteer and then professional. Rev. Aileen received a Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School and has degrees from Rutgers University and Immaculate Heart College Center.

Rev. Aileen spent 17 years in an intentional community in Ithaca, NY, Ecovillage at Ithaca. The community focused on sustainability in all its forms.  While there, she learned about collaborative leadership, consensus decision-making, and healthy group dynamics. She has a deep interest in the intersection of spirituality and environmental justice and how it relates to the Climate Crisis.  She was an environmental activist and was active in the anti-fracking movement in New York State.  She was one of the founders of Interfaith Action for Healing Earth, which looked at Religion and Theology from a multifaith perspective and as they related to Climate Change.  She believes strongly in the interconnected web of all existence of which we are all part.

Rev. Aileen helped start New Roots Charter High School in Ithaca, NY. The school focuses on sustainability and social justice as integrated parts of its curriculum.  As well as being a founder, she served as an academic support teacher from its beginning in 2009 and only left to pursue her M.Div.

Rev. Aileen has spent the majority of her adult life studying topics in religion and spirituality, and her personal theology is based in Process, Feminist, Ecological, and Liberation theologies. And, If you do not know what these are, she is happy to spend hours explaining them to you. She finds inspiration in Christian mystical, Buddhist, and Earth-based spiritual/religious traditions.

Rev. Aileen believes in human flourishing and the ability of all to have the chance to live their best and fullest lives within a multicultural Beloved Community, in which difference is respected and people’s varying experiences are cherished and honored.

Rev. Aileen and her husband Karl have two adult sons, Nick and Joe. Outside of her ministry work, her interests include making one-of-a-kind dolls, writing poetry and prose, gardening, and wandering in the woods.