The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is a mainline Protestant Lutheran Church headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The ELCA officially came into existence on January 1, 1988, by the merging of three Lutheran church bodies. As of 2017, it has approximately 3.5 million baptized members in 9,163 congregations. In 2015, Pew Research estimated that 1.4 percent of the U.S. population self-identifies with the ELCA. It is the seventh-largest Christian denomination by reported membership and the largest Lutheran denomination in the United States. The next two largest Lutheran denominations are the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS) and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS). There are also many smaller Lutheran church bodies in the United States, some of which came into being composed of dissidents following the major 1988 merger. The ELCA belongs to the World Council of Churches and the Lutheran World Federation. The ELCA is in full communion with the Episcopal Church, Moravian Church, Presbyterian Church (USA), Reformed Church in America, United Church of Christ, and the United Methodist Church.
Mark S. Hanson was the third Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Before being elected presiding bishop, he served as bishop of the Saint Paul Area Synod. Prior to being elected Synod bishop, he served as pastor of three Minnesota congregations: Prince of Glory Lutheran Church, Minneapolis; Edina Community Lutheran Church; and University Lutheran Church of Hope in Minneapolis. In addition to serving as Presiding Bishop, Hanson was the 11th President of the Lutheran World Federation.
Peter Elliott is a Canadian priest. He is currently the 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.
Andrew Sandford Hutchison is a retired Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada. 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.
John Neil Alexander is an Anglican liturgist and bishop in the Episcopal Church, currently serving as dean of the School of Theology at the University of the South. From 2001 to 2012, he was the 9th bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta.
Michael Geoffrey St Aubyn Jackson is a Northern Ireland Anglican bishop. Since 2011, he has served as the Archbishop of Dublin and Bishop of Glendalough in the Church of Ireland. He is also the co-chairman of the Porvoo Communion of Anglican and Lutheran churches.
Paul Stumme-Diers was a bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) Greater Milwaukee Synod.
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 was the Anglican archbishop of Toronto, and the former Metropolitan of the Ecclesiastical Province of Ontario. He is an alumnus of Trinity College in the University of Toronto and the 11th bishop of the diocese, the largest in the Anglican Church of Canada.
Christianity is a minority religion in Sri Lanka. Christianity was introduced to the island in first century, probably in AD 72. Traditionally, after Thomas the Apostle's visit in Kerala in AD 52, Christianity is said to have been introduced via India because of its close geographical and commercial ties. According to Christian traditions, the apostle Thomas preached the Gospel in Sri Lanka. Records suggest that St. Thomas Christians and Nestorian Christians lived in Sri Lanka. Anuradhapura cross is one of the archaeological claims that suggest Christianity in Sri Lanka before Portuguese. Roman Catholicism was introduced by the Portuguese in 1505. There were conversions by Dutch persons in the 17th century, which resulted in a percentage of church members in excess of 10%.
Frederick James "Fred" Hiltz is a Canadian Anglican bishop. Since 2007, he has been Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada.
The Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) is a Christian denomination in the Anglican tradition in the United States and Canada. It also includes ten congregations in Mexico and a missionary diocese in Cuba. Headquartered in Ambridge, Pennsylvania, the church reported 30 dioceses and 1,037 congregations serving an estimated membership of 134,593 in 2017. The first archbishop of the ACNA was Robert Duncan, who was succeeded by Foley Beach in 2014.
The Augustana Catholic Church (ACC), formerly the Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church (ALCC) and the Evangelical Community Church-Lutheran (ECCL), is an American church in the Lutheran Evangelical Catholic tradition. The ACC says it is unique among Lutheran churches in that it is of both Lutheran and Anglo-Catholic heritage and has also been significantly influenced by the Roman Catholic Church. The church was founded in 1997 by former members of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod. Its headquarters are in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The ACC has long had a policy of seeking union with the Catholic Church and announced in 2011 that it would accept the conditions of Anglicanorum coetibus and join the personal ordinariates as they are established. Later developments on limitations of joining the ordinariate caused the ACC to hold their offer while they established intercommunion with groups such as the Old Roman Catholic Church of North America. The Church claims a membership in excess of 60,000 in 12 countries.
Govada Dyvasirvadam is Bishop Emeritus of Krishna-Godavari Diocese of the Church of South India.
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 1988–2001, and as the Deputy for Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations for the Episcopal Church from 2001-2009. He then served as the Assistant Bishop of the Diocese of Chicago from November 2011 through December 2015 before retiring.
Linda Nicholls is the 13th Bishop of the Diocese of Huron. She was elected as co-adjutor bishop on February 13, 2016 and assumed the role of Diocesan Bishop on November 1, 2016 with the retirement of the Rt Rev Robert Bennett. Prior she served as a Suffragan Bishop in the Anglican Diocese of Toronto, Canada since 2008: she was in charge of the Trent Durham area of the Diocese.
Mark Lawrence MacDonald is an Anglican bishop. Since 2007, he has served as the National Indigenous Anglican Bishop for the Anglican Church of Canada; as such, he has pastoral oversight over all indigenous Canadian Anglicans. He was previously served the Episcopal Church as the Bishop of Alaska and as the assistant bishop of the Navajoland Area Mission.
