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Merino Elected Bishop Of Colombia

Episcopal News Service. March 1, 1979 [79057]

Bogata, Colombia -- The Ven. Bernardo Merino, 48, Archdeacon of the Episcopal Missionary Diocese of Colombia, has been elected bishop of the diocese at a special convention held here on Feb. 10.

Archdeacon Merino was elected on the first ballot when he obtained all the clerical votes and all but two of the lay votes.

The bishop-elect was born in Venecia, Department of Antoquia. He was ordained a priest in the Roman Catholic Church in 1955 and was received into the Episcopal Church in 1971. After serving churches in Panama he returned to his native Colombia in 1976 and soon became Archdeacon of the Diocese.

In 1971 the bishop-elect married the former Josefina Zulueta, also from Colombia. The couple has two small children.

The special convention was presided over by the Rt. Rev. Adrian D. Caceres, Bishop of Ecuador and Bishop-in-Charge of Colombia. A three-man delegation from Province IX of the Episcopal Church was present.

The date for the consecration of Archdeacon Merino will be announced later once the majority of the consents of the Church's dioceses are received.

This is the first time that the Bishop of Colombia is a national of the country since the creation of the missionary diocese in 1964.

Fr. Merino succeeds the Rt. Rev. William Franklin who resigned as Bishop of Colombia early last year for reasons of missionary strategy and who returned to his native England where he is an assistant bishop in the Diocese of Peterborough.