wfn.org | [ENS] Alaska diocese elects Mark Andrew Lattime as eighth bishop

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>Episcopal News Service
>April 10, 2010

Alaska diocese elects Mark Andrew Lattime as eighth bishop

>By ENS Staff

[Episcopal News Service] The Very Rev. Mark Lattime was elected April
10 as the eighth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Alaska, pending
the required consents from a majority of the church's diocesan
standing committees and bishops with jurisdiction.

Lattime, 43, rector of St. Michael's Episcopal Church in Geneseo in
the Diocese of Rochester (New York), was elected on the fourth ballot.
He received 42 votes of 70 cast in the lay order and 14 of 25 cast in
the clergy order. An election on that ballot required 36 in the lay
order and 14 in the clergy order.

The electing convention was held at the Meier Lake Conference Center
in Wasilla, Alaska. Lattime will succeed the Rt. Rev. Rustin Kimsey,
who has served as interim bishop for three years, since Bishop Mark
MacDonald left in 2007 to become the first indigenous bishop of the
Anglican Church of Canada.

Before being called to St. Michael's in 2000, Lattime was college
chaplain at Canterbury Fellowship and associate rector at the R.E.
Lee. Memorial Church in Lexington, Diocese of Southwest Virginia.

Lattime is a three-time deputy to General Convention (2003, 2006 and
2009) from Rochester, where he also served in numerous diocesan
capacities including: diocesan council, standing committee, as a dean
of the southwest district and a stewardship consultant.

His community involvements include serving as a board member for the
Wadsworth Public Library and as a volunteer ambulance driver for the
Geneseo Fire Department.

A certified private pilot, he is a 1988 graduate of Dickinson College
in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and earned a master of divinity degree from
Bexley Hall in 1997.

According to his election profile, Lattime said serving as bishop of
Alaska will require being "willing to engage the journey of faith as
well as the journey of vast distances to be with Alaska's people of
faith to support and nurture their evangelistic witness.

"I believe there to be nothing more attractive, more magnetic, than a
church of individuals, alive and energized by their faith, who are
willing to reach out and speak out to share that faith with others."

Under the canons of the Episcopal Church (III.11.4), a majority of
bishops exercising jurisdiction and diocesan standing committees must
consent to the bishop-elect's ordination as bishop within 120 days of
receiving notice of the election.

The consecration and ordination is scheduled for Sept. 4 at Our Lady
of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Anchorage. Presiding Bishop Katharine
Jefferts Schori will be the chief consecrator.

Other candidates were:

The Rev. Canon Ginny Doctor, 60, canon to the ordinary for the Diocese
of Alaska and assisting vicar, St. James' Mission, Tanana;
The Rev. Dr. Greg Kimura, 41, president and chief executive officer of
the Alaska Humanities Forum, and a supply priest for the Diocese of
Alaska and the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Alaska;
The Very Rev. Timothy Sexton, 61, canon administrator of the Cathedral
of St. Andrew in Honolulu in the Diocese of Hawaii; and
The Rev. Suzanne Watson, 48, Christ and Holy Trinity Church, Westport,
in the Diocese of Connecticut, according to the diocesan website.

Information about all the nominees is available at
http://www.alaskabishopsearch.org/.

The Diocese of Alaska includes 50 Episcopal congregations, from tiny
subsistence villages to major metropolitan centers. The diocese
encompasses the entire state.

http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79425_121396_ENG_HTM.htm