Vermont Makes History by Electing First Woman Diocesan Bishop in Episcopal Church
Episcopal News Service. June 7, 1993 [93115]
After three short ballots, the clergy and lay delegates to a special June 5 convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Vermont elected the Rev. Mary Adelia McLeod of West Virginia to be the first woman to serve as a diocesan bishop in the Episcopal Church.
McLeod, rector at St. John's Church in Charleston, West Virginia, said in an interview with the press that the election of women to the episcopate is important. She added, however, that the diocese "in great prayer and consideration and thought were led by the Holy Spirit to elect me" and the fact that "I just happen to be a woman is incidental."
When she is consecrated in October, pending consents from a majority of standing committees and bishops in the church, McLeod would become the third woman bishop in the Episcopal Church. Bishop Barbara Harris was elected suffragan bishop of Massachusetts in September of 1988 -- and the first woman bishop in the history of the Anglican Communion -- and Bishop Jane Dixon was elected suffragan bishop of Washington (DC) in May of 1992. Bishop Penelope Jamieson of New Zealand was consecrated in June 1990 as the first woman in the Anglican Communion to head a diocese.
Women have been candidates in a number of recent elections in the Episcopal Church. McLeod was among the first women considered for the episcopate and Vermont was the fifth time she had been a final candidate.
"I accept with all my heart. I am ready to live my life among you," she told the diocese in a phone interview after the election. "I have fallen in love with you and with Vermont and I am ready to join with you in doing our Lord's work."
Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning offered his prayers for the new bishop and said that "this new chapter in her ministry is a new chapter in the life of our church as well." Contending that the ministry of the church "is enriched by the gifts of both women and men," the presiding bishop added, "We can rejoice as another step is taken toward our episcopal ministry better reflecting this blessing."
McLeod was born and grew up in Alabama and, after a number of years as a mother (she and her husband have five grown children) and homemaker, she took her seminary degree at the School of Theology at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. As archdeacon for the western region of West Virginia, she has helped shape an innovative cluster ministry and has beep active in supporting rural deans, clergy deployment and she has served on diocesan council, president of the standing committee and a deputy to General Convention in 1988 and 1991.