Feast of St. Aiden, August 31, 2018
Bishop Search Update #10
The Search/Nomination Committee and the Transition Committee are providing updates on the Search Process through these regular emails.

See Bishop Search Website
See also the Convocation Website
Meet the Bishop Nominees in September
TRANSITION COMMITTEE UPDATE

We are less than a month away from the visits of the nominees for Bishop and their spouses.  A lot has been going on over the summer months, especially planning for events outside of the town halls for them to get to know the clergy and voting delegates a bit more personally and vice versa. The three host parishes deserve a big thank you for all they are doing to make the nominees and us welcome!

Two Reminders:

#1. We want YOUR questions!  At each town hall, the nominees will be asked three different questions that encompass what we most want to know about them, plus discuss what is important to their ministry. Written questions from the floor will then be taken. This is a great opportunity to learn more about our nominees. What would you like to hear from the nominees and how they envisage being our Bishop? Please send your suggestions for questions for these town halls to the following email:  transition@tec-europe.org by latest 6 September.

And even though it is tempting to reach out directly to the nominees with questions, we kindly request that you send them to the transition committee so that everyone has a chance to hear the answers. 

Thanks to those of you who have already submitted questions for the nominees, there are some really thought-provoking ones.

#2. Please don’t forget to sign up for the town hall event near you , if you are coming in person.  

We are asking for sign up to get an idea of numbers for the receptions before/afterwards, but we won't turn you away if you show up without registering. For those unable to attend, the events will be filmed and posted online for you to view, either at home or as part of a wider-church event in your parish/mission.
 
Town Hall Dates:
  • Thursday, September 27, at 6:00 p.m. American Cathedral, Paris
  • Saturday, September 29, 12 noon, Church of the Ascension, Munich (starting with Morning Prayer)
  • Sunday, September 30, 3:00 p.m., St. Paul’s Within the Walls, Rome

Link:   Town Hall registration - Please sign up!

We are looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible at the town halls!

Other Updates

Planning and organizing the walkabout weekends has been top priority for the Transition Committee. But we have also been working on all the other topics:
  • The election procedure,
  • How we celebrate Bishop Pierre's episcopate,
  • The Consecration weekend, and
  • How we welcome and settle the new bishop and spouse.

You will hear more about those in coming newsletters. If you have questions on any of these topics, or generally about the process, please send them to the Transition Committee email transition@tec-europe.org


Thanks,
The Transition Committee
Prayer for the Convocation
O God, we pray for the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe as we discern and elect a Bishop to serve your people, build up your Church and proclaim boldly the Gospel to the world. Send us, we pray, an apostle who is a wise counsellor, a merciful pastor, filled with your joy and grace. May your servant have the abundant gifts needed to lead your flock and the strength and courage to administer them. And may we renew and rededicate our lives to your will and service. All this we pray in the Name of our Great High Priest and Servant of the servants of God, Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen. 
NOMINEES FOR BISHOP IN CHARGE
The Rev. Mark D.W. Edington

Rector, Saint John’s Church, Newtonville, Massachusetts, USA, and Director, Amherst College Press

The Rev. Mark D.W. Edington is an ordained Episcopal priest, higher-education executive, social entrepreneur, writer, and editor. Appointed in 2014 as the founding director of the Amherst College Press, he has spearheaded the creation of a 54-college consortium supporting Lever Press, an open access, peer reviewed scholarly press. Prior to his appointment at Amherst he served as the senior executive officer of interdisciplinary research centers at Harvard, including the Center for the Study of World Religions and the Harvard Decision Science Laboratory. His work in academic publishing has encompassed directing the publications program of an independent think tank focused on issues of international security and foreign policy, and as a consulting editor at Dædalus, the journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 

Ordained in 2001, Mark served as the first Epps Fellow and Chaplain to Harvard College in The Memorial Church of Harvard University, living in residence as visiting scholar in Adams House. Subsequently appointed Associate Minister for Administration, he served as the chief operating officer of one of the largest and most influential university churches in the nation. In addition to undergraduate ministry, his responsibilities included serving as the point of contact between Memorial Church and the body of more than thirty chaplains from all denominations and faith traditions accredited to serve communities in the university, and oversight of the field work program for training seminarians. More recently, as rector of Saint John’s in Newtonville, Massachusetts, he has authored Bivocational: Returning to the Roots of Ministry (Church Publishing, 2018; www.bivocational.church), an exploration of alternatives to the received economic model of congregational life based on the expectation of a full-time, benefited professional as the ordained leader of a community. 

Mark serves as an officer or director of a number of non-profit organizations. Since 2014 he has been a trustee of Adrian College in Adrian, Michigan, where he sits on the Academic Affairs and Strategic Planning committees. From 2013-2016 he served as well as a director of the Harvard University Employees Credit Union, where his work encompassed service on the institution’s audit committee. As a member of the founding board of three NGOs, he has a deep commitment to civic engagement with foreign policy and interfaith engagement in both dialogue and service. A founding director of the 2Seeds Network, he was part of a team focused on creating a new path linking the need for strengthening ethically grounded leadership in the developed world with the need for improving self-sufficiency in the world's poorest countries. 
Mark writes frequently on issues at the intersection of public policy and religion. His essays have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, and other national publications. He has blogged on The Huffington Post and on WBUR’s Cognoscenti, and is a frequent commentator on New England Public Radio. He is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, where he is active in the Religion and Foreign Policy program. 

Mark is a graduate of Albion College, where he received the A.B. in philosophy and political science summa cum laude, and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa; the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy; and Harvard Divinity School. He has studied in programs focused on European integration at the Université libre de Bruxelles, and on post-Cold War European security at Christian-Albrechts-Universität. He is married to Judith, a graduate of Albion College, Boston College, and Harvard Law School, who is Counsel in the Tax Department of Sullivan and Worcester, Boston. She is admitted to the bar in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the State of Illinois. 
The Rev. Canon Paul-Gordon Chandler

President/CEO, CARAVAN, an international peacebuilding ministry, appointed mission partner with The Episcopal Church, based out of the greater Chicago area, Illinois, USA


The Revd Canon Paul-Gordon Chandler is a US Episcopal priest, author, interfaith advocate and art curator. Having grown up in Senegal, West Africa, he has lived and worked extensively in the Middle East, North Africa and Europe in leadership roles with The Episcopal/Anglican Church, Christian publishing and ecumenical relief and development agencies. 

Previously serving as the rector of two international churches, from 2003-2013 he was the Rector of St. John’s Church/Maadi in Cairo, Egypt, an historic international English-speaking Episcopal church with a congregation of over 35 nationalities from numerous faith traditions, primarily from the diplomatic, academic, NGO and business communities.

From 1993-1995 he served in Tunis, Tunisia, North Africa as the Rector of the St. George’s Episcopal Church, the only English-speaking church in this Muslim-majority country, with a congregation of over 30 nationalities. 

Currently based out of the greater Chicago area, as an Appointed Mission Partner with The Episcopal Church he serves as the President of CARAVAN, an international peacebuilding non-profit affiliated with The Episcopal Church that uses the arts to build bridges between the creeds and cultures of the Middle East and West.
  
Paul-Gordon is a Canon at All Saints’ Cathedral, Cairo, Egypt and has authored four books in the fields of Christian-Muslim relations, Global Christianity and the Middle East.
Prior ministry roles have included serving in the arena of Christian publishing, such as SPCK in London, England where he was the Director of SPCK Worldwide, an historic international publishing ministry of the Church of England,

involved in the U.K. and throughout the Global South. He was also U.S. Chief Executive Officer (CEO)/ Int’l Executive Vice President of IBS Publishing, an ecumenical Christian publishing, distribution and translation non-profit that has published the Bible in more than 500 languages worldwide.

Paul-Gordon has also served in the field of relief and development. From 1999-2003 he served as the President/CEO of Partners International, an international ecumenical Christian non-profit that exists to assist and empower indigenous faith-based development organizations in over 70 countries. 

He studied Theological/Biblical Studies at Wheaton College, IL, USA and at Chichester Theological College in West Sussex, England, and French at the Alliance Française in Paris, France. He is married to Lynne Chandler and together they have two grown children. 

More information on Paul-Gordon is available on the author website: www.paulgordonchandler.com.


The Very Rev. Dr. Benjamin Shambaugh

Dean of the Cathedral Church of St. Luke, Portland, Maine.

The Very Rev. Dr. Benjamin Shambaugh's ministry has included living in and around New York, Chicago, Washington, DC, Paris, Barbados, and the National Parks, doing development work in Africa, Haiti, and an Indian Reservation in the American West, and leading study tours to the Holy Land. Ordained in 1988, he has served four congregations and has had a wide variety of mission experiences including time as a chaplain at the National Cathedral in Washington, as Canon Pastor to the American Cathedral in Paris, and his current position as Dean of St. Luke's Cathedral in Portland, Maine. 

In the Diocese of Maine, Dean Shambaugh has served as President of the Standing Committee, the Chair of the General Convention Deputation, and numerous other positions. In Portland, he has served on the boards of Preble Street, the Religious Coalition Against Discrimination, and St. Elizabeth's Jubilee, been adjunct faculty at Bangor Theological Seminary, and actively worked on a wide variety of issues facing the wider community. For this work he received Preble Street’s Board Member of the Year, Integrity Maine’s Founders Award, and a commendation from the Mayor and City Council of Portland. For 10 years before coming to Maine, he served the rector of St. John's Church, in Olney, Maryland a position which included oversight of a K-8 Episcopal School and African Palms, an organization which raised roughly $100,000 a year for human need in Africa. The four years he lived in Paris were a time of transition for the Convocation which included two deans, four bishops, and the beginnings of the dream which led to the missions and the full-time elected bishop the convocation has today.

He has a BA (with honors) in psychology from Northwestern University, an M.Div. from the General Theological Seminary, and a D.Min. from Seabury Western Seminary. He is married and has two grown children. In his free time, he enjoys hiking, kayaking, and playing his tuba with the Maine Pops and other local bands. 

The Rev. Steven D. Paulikas

Rector, All Saints’ Church, Brooklyn, New York, USA


The Rev. Steven D. Paulikas is rector of  All Saints' Church, a diverse and growing parish in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn. Steven has worked with the people of All Saints’ to build a Christian community of welcome and uncompromising love for all, and parish worship attendance and membership have almost tripled since his arrival in June 2011. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Episcopal Relief and Development and the Board of Governors of the Episcopal Church at Yale, and he facilitates the process of discernment for holy orders on the Diocese of Long Island’s Commission on Ministry. He is a candidate for the DPhil in the Faculty of Theology at the University of Oxford. While a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Steven co-chaired the New York Term Member Advisory Council. His opinion writing has recently appeared in  The New York Times ,  The Guardian, and  Quartz, and his essay on the political response to evil is featured in  Modern Ethics in 77 Arguments: A Stone Reader . 

Steven left his native Michigan to attend Yale University, where his involvement in campus chaplaincy helped nurture a call to ordained ministry. After receiving the MPhil degree in European Literature at the University of Cambridge, Steven moved to Lithuania, which his father’s family fled during the Second World War. He covered such historic events as Ukraine’s Orange Revolution and EU and NATO expansion as a Vilnius-based journalist for the BBC, Newsweek, and other international media. He returned to the United States to study at the General Theological Seminary and was ordained to the priesthood in June 2008 in the Diocese of Southern Ohio. Following ordination, he served as Assistant to the Rector at Grace Church Brooklyn Heights. He and his husband, Jesse Lazar, were married at All Saints’ Church in 2014. Steven is an amateur cellist.  

More Information is on Bishop Search Website
For further information about the nominees, see the

This site includes: 
  • Biographical and other information about the nominees
  • The Convocation Profile, which was developed by the Bishop Search and Nomination Committee, both in an on-line and a downloadable form. 
  • Information and registration for the Walkabouts and Town Hall Meetings.
  • It also includes other information about the Convocation, which will assist persons who are interested in the bishop search process, including a description of the Convocation Parishes and Missions.
  • As of August 30, there have been over 44,200 visitors to the website.
  • The Bishop Search has engendered great interest in the Episcopal Church and elsewhere in the Anglican Communion.


Previous Bishop Search Update E-Mails....
Search Update #1  - Nov. 12, 2017
Search Update #2  - Dec. 16, 2017
Search Update #3  - Jan. 23, 2018
Search Update #4  - Feb. 24, 2018
Search Update #5 - March 20, 2018
Search Update #6 - May 8, 2018
Search Update #7 - June 14, 2018
Search Update #8 - June 25, 2018
Search Update #9 - July 25, 2018
Timetable of the Search for the Next
Bishop in Charge
September 27-30, 2018
  • Presentation of Bishop Candidates and spouses:
  • Thursday, September 27: Paris, France at 6:00 p.m.
  • Saturday, September 29: Munich, Germany at 12:00 noon
  • Sunday, September 30: Rome, Italy at 2:00 p.m.

  • Election of the Bishop in Charge and regular convention business 

Following the Election
  • The Standing Committees of all the Episcopal dioceses and all diocesan bishops are asked to approve the election. This process can take several months.
  • The Presiding Bishop, Deo volente, receives notice that consents have been received from a majority of bishops and standing committees of the Episcopal Church and announces the name of the Bishop-elect
  • The Bishop-elect begins her/his transition to assume office.

April 5, 2019
  • Worship Service and soirée honoring Bishop Pierre W. Whalon (Friday evening) at the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, Paris, France

April 6, 2019 - Ordination and Consecration of the new Bishop in Charge in the Cathedral in Paris, France
  • The festival liturgy will be celebrated in the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Paris, France. The Most Rev. Michael B. Curry, Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church, will preside (Saturday at 11:00 a.m.)
Transition Committee
Left to Right: Dottie Dunnam (Florence), Harriet Rivière (Paris), Ron Clingenpeel (consultant), Rob Warren (chaplain; Clermont-Ferrand), Christoph Herpel (Frankfurt), Anne Swardson, Co-Chair (Paris), Michael Rusk (Geneva), Andrea D'Agosto (Rome), Chris Easthill, Co-Chair (Wiesbaden), Janet Day-Strehlow (Munich), Steve Smith (Munich), Felicity Handford (Waterloo), Not Pictured: Alison Wale (Clermont-Ferrand)
Bishop Search and Nomination Committee
Bishop Search and Nomination Committee
Left to Right:  Dr David Lee Williams, Christ Church, Clermont-Ferrand, France;  Mr David Case – Co-Chair , Church of the Ascension, Munich Germany;  Mrs Dagmar Hamberger , St Boniface, Augsburg, Germany;  The Rev. Mark Dunham – Co-Chair, Rector, St James, Florence, Italy;  The Rev. Austin Rios , Rector, St Paul’s-within-the-Walls, Rome, Italy;  The Very Rev. Lucinda Laird , Dean, Cathedral of the Holy Trinity Paris France;  Mrs Helena Mbele-Mbong , Emmanuel, Geneva, Switzerland;  Mr John Adam , St Augustine, Wiesbaden Germany. 
Not Pictured:   The Rev, Richard Cole , Emmanuel, Geneva, Switzerland;  Mrs Carole Ducastel , All Saints, Waterloo, Belgium;  The Rev. Canon Michael Hunn , Episcopal Church Center, New York, USA;  Mrs Nancy Janin , Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, Paris, France;  Ms Nancy Treuhold , Board of Foreign Parishes, New York, USA.
Further information on the Membership and the Duties of the Search and the Transition Committees can be found here.
The Episcopal Church in Europe
The Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe is one of four Anglican jurisdictions in continental Europe. The other Anglican jurisdictions in Europe are: the Lusitanian Church of Portugal , the Reformed Episcopal Church of Spain , and the Church of England's Diocese of Gibraltar in Europe . The Convocation is a jurisdiction of the Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church,  the Most Rev. Michael B. Curry . The Episcopal Church is one of 39 provinces of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church is present in 16 countries around the world. 

The Bishop in Charge of the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe, a suffragan bishop to the Presiding Bishop, is based at The American Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Paris. There are congregations in France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, and Austria. The Convocation functions both as a European Church with a legal corporate structure based in France, as well as being a diocesan-like jurisdiction of the Episcopal Church.

The Episcopal Church has been present in Europe since 1815. The Convocation was created by a Canon of General Convention in 1859, and Bishops in Charge were appointed by the Presiding Bishop. Some were diocesan Bishops or recently retired Bishops, who exercised oversight on a part-time basis. Bishops in Charge have been resident in Europe since 1960.

The first full-time resident Bishop in Charge was the Rt. Rev. Edmond Browning (1971-1974). The first Bishop in Charge to be elected by the Convocation itself and the first to be ordained and consecrated in Europe is our present Bishop, the Rt. Rev. Pierre Whalon, who was elected in 2001 and consecrated in St. Paul's Within the Walls Episcopal Church in Rome on November 18, 2001.

Bishop Whalon announced his intention to resign as Bishop in Charge effective July 2019. This initiated a Search Process for our second elected Bishop in Charge of the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe.
The Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe | 23 avenue George V, 75008 Paris, France 
+33 (0) 1 53 23 84 06 | news@tec-europe.org | www.tec-europe.org