Wolfrum Appointed Interim Bishop of Navajoland
Episcopal News Service. September 15, 1988 [88187]
NEW YORK (DPS, Sep. 15) -- Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning has appointed Bishop William H. Wolfrum, Suffragan of Colorado, as Interim Bishop of Navajoland. He will serve in this capacity until the House of Bishops affirms the Navajos' choice for Bishop of Navajoland at the bishops' annual meeting in September 1989.
The appointment was necessitated by the death last May of Bishop Wesley Frensdorff, who had been Interim Bishop since 1983.
In July of this year, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church granted the Navajoland Area Mission further self-determination by permitting the election of a Diocesan Bishop of its own [see separate story].
Wolfrum will continue as Suffragan of Colorado during his tenure in Navajoland, just as Frensdorff had served simultaneously as Assistant Bishop of Arizona.
Before making his appointment, the Presiding Bishop consulted with the Navajoland Standing Committee, and it is reported that Wolfrum was at the top of its list of preferences. Sources say that Wolfrum met with the dozen-member Navajo delegation at General Convention prior to accepting the appointment to warn of his schedule limitations should he be appointed. In addition to commitments in his own diocese, he is president of Province VI. But, the sources say, so much good humor began to fly between the Navajo group and the tall relaxed Coloradan that mutual acceptance and understanding became inevitable.
Among his duties in Colorado, Wolfrum has had oversight of the Living Waters Indian congregation in Denver.
The Navajoland Area Mission, which was organized in 1977, is comprised of the Navajo reservation.