The Ven. Mary
Gray-Reeves, 44, archdeacon for clergy deployment for the Diocese
of Southeast Florida, was elected June 16 to be the third bishop
of the Diocese of El Camino Real in Northern
California.
Her election came on the second ballot,
when she received a total of 163 lay votes and 91 clergy votes.
One hundred three lay votes and 58 clergy votes were needed for
a candidate to be elected. (Click
here for complete ballot results.)
The other nominees were the Rev. Paige Blair,
36, rector of St. George’s Episcopal Church, York Harbor, Me.; the Rev. David Breuer, 60, rector of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church,
Los Gatos, Calif.; the Rev. Gale Davis Morris, 60, rector of Church of the
Good Shepherd, Acton, Mass.; and the Rev. John Palarine, 58, rector of Episcopal Church of Our Savior,
Jacksonville, Fla.
Gray-Reeves is
the 15th woman elected as a bishop of the Episcopal Church, and
she will be among the five youngest members of the House of Bishops.
“God has called, the Spirit has
guided, instructed and inspired, and the community of Christ has
discerned and affirmed this call at each step of this process,”
said Gray-Reeves in her message of acceptance to her new diocese,
parts of which were also given in Spanish.
(Click
here for the complete text of her acceptance.)
She expressed gratitude to her husband,
Michael Reeves, and their teenage children, Katie and Dorian,
as well as “my mentors, friends and colleagues along the
way, in the Diocese of Los Angeles, in Aotearoa/New
Zealand, and in Southeast Florida.” She gave particular thanks to
Bishop Frade, who, she said, “has mentored me and kept me on
this path to the episcopate.”
“To the diocese of El Camino Real,
today we continue walking together,” she said, “a
probable call turned to a sure reality--an inward and spiritual
grace, now in the process of becoming an outward and visible sign.
Today we begin a tangible and public ministry, united as
one in the body of Christ in El Camino Real, discovering and carrying
out Christ’s vision for the work of God’s Kingdom
in this place… This is the most holy work in which anyone
of us can ever participate, drawing another into the abiding Love
of God that we know in Jesus.
I cannot wait to join you in this work!”
Gray-Reeves is a native of Miami-Dade County,
born in Coral Gables and raised
in the Coconut Grove section of Miami.
She graduated from California
State University,
Fullerton, in 1987 with a degree
in history, and earned her bachelor of theology degree (the equivalent
of a Master of Divinity degree) from the Theological College of
St. John the Evangelist in Auckland, New
Zealand, in 1994.
After her ordination she served as assistant rector in two
parishes in the Diocese of Los Angeles before accepting the call
to be rector of St. Margaret’s, Miami
Lakes, in
December 1998.
She has served as diocesan archdeacon
for deployment since January 2005.
Prior to that appointment, she served for six years as rector
of St. Margaret’s and worked closely with the bishops
and archdeacons in the process of vision-mission
development and training for the diocese.
The Diocese of El Camino Real includes the counties of Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, San Benito, Monterey and San Luis Obispo. The youngest
diocese in California,
it was formed in 1980 by the separation from the Diocese of California
of congregations from the deaneries in those counties. Like the
Diocese of Southeast Florida, El Camino Real serves an area of
great ethnic, cultural and economic diversity, from the high-tech
industry of Silicon Valley in
the north to the agricultural areas in the south. More than 14,000
Episcopalians worship in its 50 congregations, using a variety
of languages, including English, Spanish, Tagalog,
Laotian, Vietnamese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Sudanese dialects and
Lakota.
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