Bishop Sean Rowe elected head of Episcopal Church, youngest in centuries

The Episcopal Church elected its youngest leader since the 18th century Wednesday at the denomination’s national meeting in Louisville, Kentucky.

Bishop Sean Rowe of the Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania, 49, was elected to a nine-year term as presiding bishop from a field of five candidates. Bishop Rowe also serves as provisional bishop of the Diocese of Western New York.

Bishop Rowe will succeed Bishop Michael Curry, who focused on evangelism, racial justice and the power of love in his tenure as the denomination’s first Black presiding bishop. Bishop Curry’s term ends at the end of October and Bishop Rowe will be installed on November 2.

The Episcopal Church, based in New York, is the American branch of the Anglican Communion, a global body whose head is the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. The American branch of the Church has been the home of faith for many presidents, including George Washington, Franklin Roosevelt and George HW Bush.

Bishop Rowe became the youngest Episcopal priest in the United States when he was ordained in 2000, and the youngest bishop seven years later. A native of western Pennsylvania, he has held several leadership positions within the national denomination.

Addressing his fellow bishops and delegates at the meeting following his election, Archbishop Rowe called on the Church to demonstrate courage and resilience as it approaches what he described as an “existential crisis.” caused by a changing world. He suggested he would encourage the denomination to focus on dioceses and local congregations, and to streamline its national structure so that it does not “collapse under its own weight.”

He compared the denomination’s uncertain status to his experience growing up in western Pennsylvania in the 1980s, as factories closed and his friends moved away. But he also expressed optimism. “God calls us ever deeper into the unknown,” he said. “Let us follow Jesus into this unknown future filled with hope.”

He will take over leadership of a denomination whose membership now stands at 1.4 million, a drop of more than 20 percent from the previous decade. Sunday church attendance also declined steadily during this period.

Like many global church organizations, the wider Anglican Communion remains divided on issues around sexuality, with church leaders in Africa in particular opposing homosexuality. Bishop Curry’s tenure began just months after the Episcopal Church chose to bless same-sex marriages in 2015, a decision he defended to members of the worldwide Anglican Communion who strongly opposed such marriages.

Bishop Curry’s public profile increased when he was chosen by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to deliver the sermon at their wedding in 2018. He preached on the theme of love, quoting the Rev. Martin Luther King. Jr. and the biblical prophet Amos, and ruffling some aristocratic feathers with his preaching style drawn in part from the black American church.

The Episcopal Church is one of the major historical Protestant denominations, which tend to be progressive in their theology and traditional in their style of worship. The Main Line once dominated the American religious and social landscape, but has seen a dramatic decline since the mid-20th century. The category also includes the United Methodist Church, which has lost a quarter of its U.S. congregations in recent years over disagreements over allowing practicing gay clergy, which the group voted to allow last month last.