Raymond L. Schultz B.A. M.Div. is a former National Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. He announced that he would step down after the National Convention elects his successor. [1]
The Rev. Canon Susan Johnson, formerly assistant to the Bishop of the Eastern Synod, was elected to succeed him as National Bishop on June 22, 2007. Bishop Schultz continued in office until September 1, 2007 .
He was elected to the position of National Bishop in 2001, replacing outgoing Bishop Telmor Sartison in a ceremony attended by both Lutheran and Anglican clergy .
Schultz served as bishop of the British Columbia synod from 1998 to 2001. He studied for his Bachelor of Arts at the University of Saskatchewan, and obtained his Master of Divinity from the Lutheran Theological Seminary, doing post-graduate work at the Vancouver School of Theology .
Apostolic succession is the method whereby the ministry of the Christian Church is considered by some Christian denominations to be derived from the apostles by a continuous succession, which has usually been associated with a claim that the succession is through a series of bishops. Those of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Scandinavian Lutheran, Anglican, Oriental Orthodox, Church of the East, Hussite, Moravian, and Old Catholic traditions maintain that "a bishop cannot have regular or valid orders unless he has been consecrated in this apostolic succession". These traditions do not always consider the episcopal consecrations of all of the other traditions as valid.
An episcopal polity is a hierarchical form of church governance in which the chief local authorities are called bishops. The word "bishop" here is derived via the British Latin and Vulgar Latin term *ebiscopus/*biscopus, from the Ancient Greek ἐπίσκοπος epískopos meaning "overseer". It is the structure used by many of the major Christian Churches and denominations, such as the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Church of the East, Anabaptist, Lutheran, and Anglican churches or denominations, and other churches founded independently from these lineages. Many Methodist denominations have a form of episcopal polity known as connexionalism.
The Continuing Anglican movement, also known as the Anglican Continuum, encompasses a number of Christian churches, principally based in North America, that have an Anglican identity and tradition but are not part of the Anglican Communion.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada is Canada's largest Lutheran denomination, with 95,000 baptized members in 519 congregations, with the second largest, the Lutheran Church–Canada, having 47,607 baptized members. Together with the LCC and the Canadian Association of Lutheran Congregations, it is one of only three all-Canadian Lutheran denominations. It is a member of the Lutheran World Federation, the Canadian Council of Churches, the World Council of Churches, and the Anglican-Lutheran North American grouping Churches Beyond Borders. According to the 2021 Canadian census, a larger number of 328,045 adherents identify as Lutheran.
The Anglican Church of Canada is the province of the Anglican Communion in Canada. The official French-language name is l'Église anglicane du Canada. In 2022, the Anglican Church counted 294,931 members on parish rolls in 1,978 congregations, organized into 1,498 parishes. The 2021 Canadian census counted 1,134,315 self-identified Anglicans, making the Anglican Church the third-largest Canadian church after the Catholic Church and the United Church of Canada.
The Church of Pakistan is a united Protestant Church in Pakistan founded in 1970; it holds membership in the Anglican Communion, the World Communion of Reformed Churches, and the World Methodist Council.
Peter Elliott is a Canadian priest. He is the former (retired) rector of Christ Church Cathedral and Dean of New Westminster in the Anglican Church of Canada. Elliott grew up in St. Catharines, Ontario. In 1976 he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature and philosophy from Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario. Subsequently, he attended and graduated from the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1981 he was ordained a priest in the Diocese of Niagara. Prior to coming to Vancouver he was Director of Ministries in Church and Society with the Anglican Church of Canada. In 1994, Elliott was made rector of Christ Church Cathedral and Dean of New Westminster. He retired in October 2019 after 25 years.
Andrew Sandford Hutchison is a Canadian retired Anglican bishop who served as Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada from 2004 to 2007. Prior to his election at the General Synod of 2004, he was the Bishop of Montreal and Metropolitan of the ecclesiastical province of Canada. He was viewed as one of the more liberal contenders in the primatial election, and was Canadian Chair of Affirming Catholicism. He was elected amid controversy over his support for blessing same-sex unions.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia is a Lutheran Protestant church in Latvia. Latvia's Lutheran heritage dates back to the Reformation. Both the Nazi and communist regimes persecuted the church harshly before religious freedom returned to Latvia in 1988. In contrast to Estonia, where state atheism reduced the once 80% Lutheran majority to barely 10% by 2011, the Latvian Lutheran church saw its membership drop to around 20% but has recovered and now includes approximately 30% of the population. The church reports having 250,000 members according to the Lutheran World Federation.
The General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada is the chief governing and legislative body of the Anglican Church of Canada (ACC), the sole Canadian representative of the Anglican Communion. The first General Synod session was held in Toronto in 1893, with the proviso that the parameters of its authority would not undermine the local independence of dioceses.
Colin Robert Johnson is the former Anglican archbishop of Toronto and Moosonee, and he served as Metropolitan of the Ecclesiastical Province of Ontario from 2009 to 2018. He was the 11th Bishop of Toronto, the largest diocese in the Anglican Church of Canada.
The historic or historical episcopate comprises all episcopates, that is, it is the collective body of all the bishops of a group who are in valid apostolic succession. This succession is transmitted from each bishop to their successors by the rite of Holy Orders. It is sometimes subject of episcopal genealogy.
Frederick James Hiltz is a Canadian retired Anglican bishop. From 2007 to 2019, he served as Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada.
The Anglican Church of Canada is the third largest church in Canada, after the Roman Catholic Church and the United Church of Canada. After many years of debate, the first blessing of a same-sex partnership took place in 2003, by the Diocese of New Westminster, in Vancouver. This was not considered a marriage ceremony, but rather a blessing of "permanent and faithful commitments" between persons of the same sex.
Bishop T. B. D. Prakasa Rao was the fourth CSI-Bishop - in - Krishna-Godavari of the Protestant Church of South India who occupied the Cathedra placed at CSI-St. Paul's Cathedral, Vijayawada. The Bishopric of Prakasa Rao lasted for two decades from 1981 through 2001, one of the longest in the history of the Church of South India Society. Prakasa Rao led the bishopric of Krishna-Godavari that comprised the Christian missions established by the London Missionary Society (LMS) and the Church Missionary Society (CMS) which merged its South India Christian missions in India into the Church of South India Society which was inaugurated in 1947 at the CSI-St. George's Cathedral, Madras.
Carl Christopher Epting is a bishop in the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. He served the Diocese of Iowa as coadjutor bishop and diocesan bishop from 1988 to 2001, and as the Deputy for Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations for the Episcopal Church from 2001 to 2009. He then served as the Assistant Bishop of the Diocese of Chicago from November 2011 through December 2015 before retiring. Since 2021, Bishop Epting and his wife, Susanne, have resided in Englewood, Colorado.
The Right Reverend K. Reuben Mark is the present Bishop in Karimnagar and the sixth in succession and occupies the Cathedra of the Bishop placed in Karimnagar's CSI-Wesley Cathedral. Reuben Mark is currently a Council Member for the period 2015–2018 at the fully-ecumenical United Theological College, Bangalore. During the XXXVIth session of Church of South India Synod, Reuben Mark has been elected as Deputy Moderator for the triennium 2020-2023 succeeding V. Prasada Rao.
Linda Carol Nicholls is a Canadian Anglican bishop who served as Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada from 2019 until her retirement in 2024. She was previously Bishop of Huron from 2016 to 2019 and a suffragan bishop in the Anglican Diocese of Toronto from 2008 to 2016. She is the first woman to head the Anglican Church of Canada and the second female primate in the Anglican Communion.
Mark Simon Austin Tanner is a British Anglican bishop and academic. Since 2020, he has been the Bishop of Chester; he previously served as Bishop of Berwick, a suffragan bishop in the Diocese of Newcastle since his 2016 consecration as bishop; and from August 2011 until his consecration, he was the Warden of Cranmer Hall, Durham, a Church of England theological college.
Daniel Christian Gifford is an American-born Canadian bishop of the Anglican Church in North America. In February 2022, he was consecrated as coadjutor bishop of the Anglican Network in Canada and succeeded Charlie Masters as diocesan bishop in November 2022. He was previously archdeacon for the Vancouver area in ANiC and vicar of St. John's Vancouver.