Melissa M. Skelton

The Most Reverend Melissa Skelton
Bishop of New Westminster
Church	Anglican Church of Canada
See	Anglican Diocese of New Westminster
In office	2014–present
Predecessor	Michael Ingham
Successor	Incumbent

Melissa Maxine Skelton is the 9th Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of New Westminster, a diocese in the Anglican Church of Canada, and is the 12th Metropolitan of the Ecclesiastical Province of British Columbia and Yukon.^[1] She was elected bishop on the third ballot, November 30, 2013, by a substantial majority at an Electoral Synod held at Christ Church Cathedral, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and ordained and installed in Vancouver on St. David's Day, March 1, 2014. The consecration event was a three-hour liturgy that took place in different locations - the Vancouver Convention Centre, followed by a procession through downtown Vancouver and then at the procession's destination, Christ Church Cathedral. Archbishop Skelton is the first woman, the first American and the first person to have had a career outside of the church prior to ordination to be Bishop of the Diocese of New Westminster.

April 27, 2018, Archbishop Skelton was named Episcopal Visitor to the North American province of the Society of Catholic Priests which at the current time is predominantly a group within The Episcopal Church in the United States.^[2]

May 12 of 2018, she was elected Metropolitan of the Ecclesiastical Province of British Columbia and Yukon, an office that comes with the title archbishop. She was elected by the members of the provincial house of bishops and the electoral college of the province on the first ballot. She is the first woman to become an archbishop in the Anglican Church of Canada. Archbishop Skelton was installed as Metropolitan on Holy Cross Day, September 14, 2018 during a Celebration of the Eucharist prior to the Opening of Provincial Synod in Sorrento, British Columbia.

Archbishop Skelton was born and raised in the US South, specifically, Alabama and Georgia and came to faith in the Episcopal Church in her 20s. Throughout her adult life she worked in the corporate world as well as maintaining a vocation for ministry. Prior to her election she was Rector at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Seattle, Washington and also Canon for Congregational Development and Leadership - Diocese of Olympia, Seattle, Washington. Then-Canon Skelton developed a Congregational Development program that adopts the GATHER-TRANSFORM-SEND model and this program was established as the core curriculum for the College for Congregational Development in the Episcopal Diocese of Olympia, the college that she founded during her nine-year incumbency at St. Paul's. In the summer of 2016 the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago added the College for Congregational Development to its program roster. As of May 2018 the School is active in four Episcopal Church Dioceses in the United States and one other diocese in Canada, the Diocese of Ottawa.

Archbishop Skelton married Seattle-based family counselor, the Reverend Eric Stroo on August 15, 2015 in Cannon Beach Oregon (Reverend Stroo is also a non-stipendary deacon serving in the Episcopal Diocese of Olympia and currently on loan to the Diocese of New Westminster serving at St.Michael's Multicultural Anglican Church in Vancouver, BC). She has three siblings: a brother in San Francisco and two sisters in Atlanta, Georgia. She has a son, Evan who lives with his wife and children in the UK.

References

External links

• Biography at diocesan website