Panama, Gedoria Choose Coadjutors
Episcopal News Service. [83177]
NEW YORK (DPS, Sept. 29) -- The Rev. James H. Ottley and the Rev. Harry W. Shipps were elected bishops coadjutor in diocesan elections held in Mid-September.
Ottley, a native of Panama was elected coadjutor of that diocese Sept. 24 after three prior meetings of the diocesan convention had failed to achieve an election. After all required consents are received and he is consecrated, he will be in line to succeed the Rt. Rev. Lemuel B. Shirley who has been bishop of Panama for 11 years.
Shipps, chairman of the ministries commission and dean of the Augusta convocation in the diocese of Georgia, was elected coadjutor there Sept. 15. He will succeed the Rt. Rev. G. Paul Reeves who has also been diocesan bishop for 11 years.
Ottley, 47, is a native of Colon and a graduate of the Seminary of the Carribbean from which he also earned a master's degree in psychology. He was ordained in 1964 and has served his entire ministry in parishes and chaplaincies in the diocese of Panama. He is also active in provincial affairs, serving as secretary of Province IX, a regional Christian education coordinator and provincial representative to the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church.
Shipps, 57, is a graduate of the New York State Maritime Academy and served in the Merchant Marine and the United States Navy for nine years before attending the School of Theology at the University of the South. He received his B.D. degree and was ordained in 1958. In addition to parish ministry in Albany, Savannah and Augusta, Ga., he has served as diocesan secretary, editor of the diocesan newspaper, on diocesan council, member and president of the standing committee and as a deputy to three General Conventions.
Like the man who will succeed him, Shirley, 67, is a native of Colon and has served his entire ministry in Panama while remaining intensely active in the affairs of the Province and the national Church. He is a graduate of the Bishop Payne Theological School and spent 30 years in parish ministry before being consecrated to the episcopate in 1972. From 1952 until his election he was also archdeacon and was deputy to three General Conventions. In 1975, he was elected president of Province IX and served in that post until last year presiding over a number of changes in both the makeup and the guiding principles of that entity.
Reeves, 64, is a native of Roanoke, Va. and a graduate of Randolph-Macon College in Virginia and the Yale Divinity School. He served as a Navy chaplain in World War II and was ordained to the Episcopal priesthood in 1948. After three years as a university chaplain, he entered parish ministry as rector of All Saints, Winter Park, Fla. He later served as rector of Church of the Redeemer in Sarasota and as rector of St. Stephen's in Miami, from which post he was elected bishop coadjutor of Georgia in 1969. He served 15 years -- the last eight as president -- on the standing committee of the Diocese of Central Florida and was a deputy to three General Conventions.