Easton Taps Sorge on First Ballot

Episcopal News Service. May 5, 1983 [83081]

NEW YORK, (DPS May 5,) -- The Rt. Rev. Elliot L. Sorge, a former missionary and a member of the Church Center staff since 1977, has been elected Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Easton.

Sorge, executive of the Education for Mission and Ministry staff at the Center, was elected on the first ballot at a special convention April 30 at the cathedral in Easton, the see city of this diocese on the eastern shore of Maryland. If he receives the canonical consents, he will succeed the Rt. Rev. W. Moultrie Moore as the eighth bishop of the diocese.

A native of Indiana, Sorge is a graduate of De Pauw University and Seabury-Western Theological Seminary. He served parishes in North Dakota from his ordination in 1954 until he went to Brazil as a missionary ten years later. In 1971, he was consecrated bishop of the Diocese of South Central Brazil and served in that capacity until he resigned for mission strategy in 1977.

He joined the Church Center staff as officer for the Development of Ministry that year and was named executive of the unit in 1980. Under his tenure, the unit has undergone an extensive reorganization and now operates through a series of networks that serve parish needs in evangelism, education, youth ministries, and lay development, and the wider Church through deployment and seminary coordination.

Moore became bishop of Easton in 1975 after eight years as suffragan bishop of North Carolina. He was elected to the episcopate in 1967 after a career of 26 years as a parish priest in his native South Carolina and in North Carolina.

The diocese consists of about 9,000 members served by 47 clergy in 37 congregations.