Two Bishops Suffragan Consecrated in Connecticut
Episcopal News Service. October 28, 1981 [81282]
HARTFORD, Conn. -- In an unusual event for the Episcopal Church, two men were consecrated at the same time as bishops suffragan for the Diocese of Connecticut, in a service in the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. Joseph here, Oct. 23.
Both men, the Rt. Rev. Clarence N. Coleridge and the Rt. Rev. Bradford Hastings, were elected on the same day, at a Special Convention in May, another first in the Episcopal Church.
At the time of their election, Coleridge was rector of St. Mark's Church, Bridgeport, and Hastings was rector of Christ Church, Greenwich.
In order to provide a greater degree of pastoral support and to make them more immediately accessible to congregations, the new bishops will be assigned different geographical areas for oversight.
Coleridge will be responsible for the western third of the state, containing approximately half the congregations and people, and will operate out of Trumbull. Hastings will cover the other half of the congregations in the eastern two-thirds of the state, with an office in Portland.
The consecration was held at St. Joseph's Cathedral, which has more than double the seating capacity of the Episcopal Cathedral, through the cooperation of the Most Rev. John F. Whealon, Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Hartford.
Chief Consecrator for the service was the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, the Rt. Rev. John M. Allin. The Co-Consecrators were: the Rt. Rev. Arthur E. Walmsley, Bishop of Connecticut; the Rt. Rev. Frederick C. Darwent, Bishop of Aberdeen and Orkney, Scotland, the Rt. Rev. Frederick B. Wolf, Bishop of Maine; and the Rt. Rev. Morgan Porteus, Bishop of Connecticut, Retired.
While the double consecration was a first within a diocese of the United States, it was the second for the Episcopal Church in recent years. Two suffragan bishops in the Diocese of Central and South Mexico -- the Rt. Rev. Roberto Martinez-Resendiz and the Rt. Rev. Claro Huerta-Ramos -- were consecrated together in March of 1980. They were elected at separate sessions of Convention.
The Diocese of Connecticut dates its life from 1784 when Darwent's predecessor as Bishop of Orkney was the chief consecrator for Samuel Seabury, first bishop of the Episcopal Church. The diocese now has 107,000 members in 186 congregations served by 350 clergy.