Diocese of New Westminster | |
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Location | |
Ecclesiastical province | British Columbia and Yukon |
Information | |
Rite | Anglican |
Cathedral | Christ Church Cathedral, Vancouver |
Current leadership | |
Bishop | The Rt. Rev. Melissa M. Skelton |
Website | |
vancouver.anglican.ca |
The Diocese of New Westminster is one of five dioceses of the Ecclesiastical Province of British Columbia and the Yukon of the Anglican Church of Canada. The See city is Vancouver. The current Bishop is the Right Reverend Melissa Skelton. Bishop Skelton was consecrated and installed March 1st, 2014. She is the 9th Bishop of the diocese, the first woman, the first American and the first person who had a previous career prior to ordination to the priesthood to be elected bishop of the 135-year-old diocese. The Dean of New Westminster and Rector of the Cathedral Church, Christ Church is the Very Rev. Peter Elliott and the Executive Archdeacon of the Diocese is the Venerable G. Douglas Fenton.
The diocese encompasses about 78,000 square kilometres of the Lower Mainland in the civil province of British Columbia, comprising the Regional Districts of Greater Vancouver, Fraser Valley, Sunshine Coast, Powell River and part of the Regional District of Squamish-Lillooet (including Squamish and Whistler).
The Diocese was founded in New Westminster in 1879, but with the phenomenal growth of the City of Vancouver, the See city was moved there in 1912. There are, therefore, two churches styled as "cathedrals" in the diocese — Christ Church Cathedral in Vancouver has been the cathedral since 1929, while Holy Trinity Cathedral in New Westminster was the cathedral from 1892 to that date. Although no longer a cathedral, the Diocesan Synod allowed Holy Trinity to keep the title "cathedral" as a courtesy for historical reasons (it is, strictly speaking, a pro-cathedral).