Background
Riches was born in Philadelphia.
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Leonard Wayne Riches
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Riches graduated cum laude at Princeton University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature in 1961.
Career
He continued advanced graduate work at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, completing all the course work toward an Master of Sacred Theology. He then devoted his time to pastoral ministry and teaching at the Reformed Episcopal Seminary at the request of Robert K. Rudolph. Riches was awarded honorary Doctor of Divinity degrees by the Reformed Episcopal Seminary in 1976 and by Cranmer Theological House in 1997. Riches was ordained a deacon in 1964 and a presbyter in 1965.
In 1974 he was elected bishop of the Diocese of the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic, being consecrated on June 1975 at the First Episcopal Reformed Church in New York, as assistant bishop.
He would be later elected bishop co-adjutor. He was bishop ordinary of the Diocese of the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic from 1984 to November 2008.
He was appointed to the rank of lecturer at the seminary in 1965. He rose to the rank of Professor of Liturgics and Theology.
He was named Professor Emeritus of Liturgics and Theology and retired from Reformed Episcopal Seminary in 2015 after serving there for fifty years.
He served as the seminary"s president from 1982 to 1990. He then served as chancellor of the seminary until his retirement from that position in 2008. He currently serves as vice-president of the board of directors of the seminary.
He was also a visiting professor at Cranmer Theological House and at the Sangre de Cristo Seminary in Westcliffe, Colorado.
Riches was Moderator of the Federation of the Anglican Churches in the Americas from January 2006 to April 2008. He also served as chairman of the board of Anglicans United.
