Coadjutor Consecrated for West Missouri
Episcopal News Service. March 23, 1989 [89060]
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (DPS, Mar. 23) -- On February 25, the Rt. Rev. John Clark Buchanan was consecrated Bishop Coadjutor for the Diocese of West Missouri. He will eventually succeed the diocesan, the Rt. Rev. Arthur A. Vogel. The rite of consecration took place at Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral in Kansas City. The chief consecrator was the Most Rev. Edmond L. Browning, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. Co-consecrators were Bishop Vogel; the Rt. Rev. W. Moultrie Moore, Jr., retired Bishop of Easton (Maryland); and the Rt. Rev. Charles Farmer Duvall, Bishop of the Central Gulf Coast.
A group of 30 parishioners and clergy came to Kansas City for the consecration from Buchanan's former South Carolina diocese and from St. Andrew's Church in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, where he was rector. The Rev. Jack F. Nietert, associate rector of St. Andrew's Church, was preacher at the consecration.
Among the more than 700 persons witnessing the consecration were many regional religious leaders and other local dignitaries from Missouri and adjoining areas of Kansas.
Buchanan, 55, was elected Bishop Coadjutor at a special convention of the Diocese of West Missouri on October 22, 1988. Upon Bishop Vogel's announced retirement on July 1 of this year, Buchanan will become the pastoral head of the diocese's 48 parishes and missions. With its headquarters in Kansas City, Missouri, the diocese covers the western half of the state of Missouri.
The new Bishop Coadjutor came to the Diocese of West Missouri from Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, where he had been rector of St. Andrew's Church since 1975. Prior posts were as vicar of St. Barnabas Church (1969-1971) and as rector of St. Matthew's Church (1971-1975), in Dillon and Darlington, South Carolina, respectively.
Buchanan earned his doctor of ministry degree in 1974 from McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago, and a master of divinity degree in 1969 from General Theological Seminary in New York. He was granted an A.B. degree in 1958 and a J.D. degree in 1960, both from the University of South Carolina. He was a member of the South Carolina Bar from 1960 to 1969.
In 1964, Buchanan married the former Peggy Annelle Brown. They are the parents of two daughters.