Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Bishop-elect Lattime completes consent process

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori's office announced Aug. 4 that Bishop-elect Mark Andrew Lattime of the Episcopal Diocese of Alaska has received the required number of consents from bishops with jurisdiction and diocesan standing committees to his ordination and consecration.

Lattime, 43, was elected April 10 as eighth bishop of Alaska on the fourth ballot from an initial slate of five candidates. 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.

His ordination and consecration is set for Sept. 4 at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Anchorage.

The presiding bishop will officiate.

Lattime had served most recently as rector of St. Michael's Episcopal Church in Geneseo in the Diocese of Rochester (New York).

He will succeed Bishop Mark MacDonald, who left in 2007 to become the first indigenous bishop of the Anglican Church of Canada.

The Rt. Rev. Rustin Kimsey has served as interim bishop for three years.

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.

A volunteer ambulance driver for the Geneseo Fire Department, he is also 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.

While Lattime has received the necessary majority of consents, consents will continue to be accepted up to and including the Sept. 25 deadline date.

As outlined under Canon III.11.4 (a), the presiding bishop confirmed the receipt of consents from a majority of bishops with jurisdiction (diocesan bishops only), and has also reviewed the evidence of consents from a majority of the diocesan standing committees of the church.

SIC: ELO