Florida Bishop John Howard has announced plans to retire in fall 2023 and has called for the election of a bishop coadjutor, who would be installed as bishop diocesan after Howard retires.
Howard made the announcement Jan. 30 during Florida’s Diocesan Convention. He has led the Jacksonville-based diocese since 2004 and will reach the church’s mandatory retirement age of 72 in 2023.
The search committee is scheduled to begin accepting nominations for bishop coadjutor by this fall, with an election in summer 2022 and consecration by Nov. 5, 2022.
Howard, who previously served as vicar of Trinity Church Wall Street in New York, is known as one of the more theologically conservative bishops in The Episcopal Church. Leading up to the 79th General Convention in 2018, he was one of eight bishops who refused to allow same-sex couples to marry using church-approved trial rites.
Howard opposed but ultimately accepted General Convention’s compromise resolution that year, which was intended to accommodate couples without requiring Howard and other conservative bishops to act contrary to their theological beliefs about marriage. In most cases, those bishops chose to delegate pastoral oversight to other bishops.
Episcopal News Service
Oregon
The Rt. Rev. Dr. Diana D. Akiyama was ordained and consecrated as the XI Bishop of Oregon on Saturday, January 30, 2021 at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Portland, Oregon.
Bishop Akiyama was the first Japanese-American woman ordained to the Episcopal priesthood, and she is the first Asian-American woman consecrated as Bishop in The Episcopal Church. She is the first bishop to be consecrated at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in over a century.
Wyoming
The Rt. Rev. Paul-Gordon Chandler, was ordained and consecrated as the X Bishop of Wyoming on February 13 at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Laramie, Wyoming.
Chandler, who grew up in West Africa, hails most recently from Doha, Qatar, in the Arabian Gulf, where he was the rector of the Anglican Church in Qatar, a church that hosts approximately 20,000 Christians each weekend from over 85 faith communities of varying traditions.
Massachusetts
As the one-year anniversary of the death of Bishop Barbara C. Harris on March 13 approaches, Bishop Alan M. Gates and Bishop Gayle E. Harris are inviting people and congregations in the Diocese of Massachusetts – and across The Episcopal Church – to include remembrances of her in their prayers and liturgies.
Barbara Harris was consecrated in 1989 as the Anglican Communion’s first female bishop, and served as a suffragan in Massachusetts. The diocese has created a webpage with material to support commemorations, including a collect and suggested propers.
