The Rev. Canon Chilton R. Knudsen, pastoral care officer of the Diocese of Chicago, was elected Bishop of Maine Nov. 14 in Bangor. Canon Knudsen, 51, was elected on the fourth ballot from a field of five.

"I expect and hope and trust that the people of Maine are really ready to have a shared episcopate," she said in an interview with Anglican Advance, the newspaper of the Diocese of Chicago.

She is expected to begin her leadership role early in 1998, but she will not be consecrated and formally installed until later. The consecration service has been tentatively scheduled for March 28.

Canon Knudsen has held the diocesan position since 1987. She is a graduate of Chatham College and Seabury-Western Theological Seminary. She was ordained priest in 1981 with four other women, the first female candidates to be ordained in the Diocese of Chicago. She was vicar of St. Benedict's Church, Bolingbrook, Ill., for six years before moving to the diocesan ministry.

She has also served as interim vicar for three congregations since joining the diocesan staff.

Before entering seminary she was a clinic administrator for Planned Parenthood and a contract trainer for the Illinois Department of Mental Health. She is currently a member of the board of trustees of the Church Pension Fund.

She and her husband, Michael, have been married for 26 years. They have a grown son, Daniel.

The Rt. Rev. Frank T. Griswold, Bishop of Chicago and Presiding Bishop-elect, said Canon Knudsen "has shown incredible pastoral skill and forthrightness" in dealing with sensitive matters involving clergy and congregations.

In Maine, she will succeed the Rt. Rev. Edward Chalfant, who resigned in 1996 after admitting to an extramarital affair with an unmarried lay woman.

Others nominated were: the Rev. Randolph Dales, rector of All Saints', Wolfeboro, N.H., the Rev. Leander Harding, rector of St. John's, Stamford, Conn., the Ven. Mark Hollingsworth, archdeacon of Massachusetts, and the Rev. Linton Studdiford, rector of St. Alban's, Cape Elizabeth, Maine.