The Rt. Rev. Frank T. Griswold will be the third Bishop of Chicago to leave that city for the national church headquarters when he assumes the office of Presiding Bishop Jan. 1, 1998. Bishops Philander Chase in 1843, and Charles Anderson in 1929, made the same journey. And he will be the second Griswold in the office; the first was Alexander Viets Griswold, in 1836.

But until he and his wife, Phoebe, move to the city where their daughters, Hannah and Eliza, live, he will continue to work as the Bishop of Chicago. Following his departure, an interim bishop will be appointed, with the new diocesan to be elected at the convention of 1998.

At a press conference in Chicago July 31, Bishop Griswold said "an entire lifetime has occurred" in the short time since his election. Still sounding a bit stunned, he said, "Suddenly I've become a hot property."

His remarks focused primarily upon the role of the Episcopal Church within the Anglican Communion. Bishop Griswold said he is "called to be a minister of communion and connection between the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. Even though the Episcopal Church is small, [we have a] significant role in world-wide Anglicanism."

Responding to a questioner's suggestion that the international Anglican Communion was "not pleased" with some of the actions of General Convention, Bishop Griswold reiterated the importance of increasing conversation with other Anglicans. "And we must listen carefully to each other." Americans must remember, he said, that we are not "the totality of the Anglican Communion, nor the final word or the cutting edge."

He expressed strong support for an international commission on human sexuality similar to the Eames Commission on the ordination of women, called for by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. George Carey, to be under discussion at the Lambeth Conference in 1998.

Bishop Griswold's previous work as co-chair of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission will be continued. "I've discovered that the Presiding Bishop is ex-officio member of all bodies, and can show up wherever he wants," he said with a wry chuckle, adding his intent to escalate ecumenical relations with Roman Catholics, the Orthodox churches, as well as the Lutheran churches. He surprised most of the listeners when he said he had taught at an ELCA seminary in Philadelphia. He's showed the Lutherans, he said, that Episcopalians weren't "quite as daffy as straight-thinking Germans may have thought."

The return to the East will be good for the Griswold family, the bishop said. In 1985, when they went to Chicago, "we left one daughter in New Hampshire. The 13-year-old [who went to Chicago] felt her life had ended." This election, they said, was "very healing. It brings us together." At the same time, Bishop Griswold said, "I love Chicago ... the can-do openness. I'll hate to leave."

The first appointment to the Presiding Bishop-elect's staff was announced at the press conference by communications officer David Skidmore. The Rev. Canon Carlson Gerdau, canon to the ordinary in Chicago, will become assistant to the Presiding Bishop.