Background
Simmons was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, and earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of South Alabama (1976), studying Spanish Language and Literature and (Latin American) History and working as a student pastor.
Simmons was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, and earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of South Alabama (1976), studying Spanish Language and Literature and (Latin American) History and working as a student pastor.
University of Edinburgh. Duke Divinity School.
In 1980, he received his Master of Divinity at the Duke Divinity School, having studied Comparative Semitics, and in 1982 received his Master of Sacred Theology at Yale University. He then studied at New College, Edinburgh, and earned a Doctor of Philosophy in Early Church History (1985). His dissertation, Arnobius of Sicca.
Conflict and Competition in the Age of Diocletian, was published in 1995 by Oxford University Press.
He was elected Archbishop in 2007 by the House of Bishops of the Anglican Province of Christ the Good Shepherd and was installed on March 26, 2008.