The Rt. Rev. Winston Njongonkulu Ndungane, Bishop of Kimberley and Kuruman, has been elected Archbishop of Cape Town and becomes the new primate of the Church of the Province of Southern Africa. He was elected June 4 by the Elective Assembly of the province.

The archbishop-elect, 55, succeeds Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who has retired. Bishop Ndungane's father, grandfather and great-grandfather all were Anglican priests. He was a political prisoner from 1963 to 1966, when he said he received his call to serve God. He studied for the priesthood at St. Peter's College and was ordained in 1974 in Cape Town.

Bishop Winston studied at Kings' College, London, and served as an assistant priest in several London parishes. He was provincial liaison officer in South Africa from 1982 to 1984, then became principal of St. Bede's Theological College in 1984. He became executive officer for the province in 1987, and was consecrated Bishop of Kimberley and Kuruman in 1991.

He served nine years on the Anglican Consultative Council, represented the Archbishop of Canterbury at the Roman Catholic Synod of Bishops for Africa meeting in 1994, and is a member of the province's theological committee.

"I am humbled and overwhelmed by the confidence that the Diocese of Cape Town and the Church of the Province of Southern Africa has placed in me," Bishop Winston said after the election. "It is a distinctive honor for me to have been chosen to succeed Archbishop Desmond Tutu, an outstanding church leader of our time."

Anglican Communion News Service contributed to this article