Three new Arctic bishops elected & consecrated
By Sue Careless
THE DIOCESE of the Arctic has elected three new suffragan or assistant bishops: Annie Ittoshat, Lucy Netser and Joey Royal. They were elected on March 28th at a diocesan synod held in Yellowknife and consecrated only three days later, on the last day of that synod.
A consecration so soon after an election is unusual in other parts of the country but was deemed wise given the high cost of airfare in the Arctic.
One new bishop will replace outgoing suffragan Darren McCartney and the others will fill two new positions. All three new bishops will assist the diocesan bishop, David Parsons.
Annie Ittoshat and Lucy Netser are the first women bishops in the Arctic but not the first Inuit bishops. That distinction goes to first Paul Idlout (suffragan), then Andrew Atagotaaluk (diocesan) and finally Benjamin Arreak (suffragan).
The Rt. Rev. Annie Ittoshat has served as a priest at the Church of the Epiphany in Verdun, Que. Ittoshat previously worked as Aboriginal community minister for the diocese of Montreal. Originally from the northern community of Kuujjuarapik, she is an alumnus of John Abbott College and Wycliffe College and a current member of the Anglican Council of Indigenous Peoples (ACIP).
The Rt. Rev. Lucy Netser had been lead pastor at St. Francis’ Church in Arviat, Nunavut and regional dean for the Kivalliq deanery.
The Rt. Rev. Joey Royal will be familiar to Anglican Planet readers as he has been a preacher in our pages and was interviewed as well on our back page. He has served as director and primary instructor of the Arthur Turner Training School in Iqaluit on Baffin Island. Most of the Indigenous clergy in the diocese have been trained at ATTS. Royal was previously the rector at Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Yellowknife, N.W.T.
The vast majority of the Inuit are members of the Anglican Church of Canada. The denomination has congregations in fifty-one settlements and these are grouped into thirty-one parishes. In all but six of these congregations the indigenous language of the area is used for the main Sunday worship, while worship in English takes an important but second place.
Covering some four million square kilometres and one third of the area of Canada, the Diocese of the Arctic is the largest Anglican diocese in the world. It encompasses not only the Northwest Territories and Nunavut but also a large swath of northern Quebec. Two bishops alone could not easily oversee such a vast expanse without leaving their families for weeks on end. And even then it would be a challenge to become familiar with all the isolated communities.
So it was decided about a year ago that the diocese would return to an earlier model established in the 1990s with not one but three suffragan bishops who would reside in their area of responsibility and continue a teaching or parish ministry as well as an episcopal one, including visitations, confirmations and pastoral care for clergy.
Bishop Parsons says that while all three new bishops will be suffragans “of the entire Arctic,” each also will have a specific focus:
Bishop Royal will continue as Director of ATTS and oversee all training within the diocese and will oversee the High Arctic and South Baffin deaneries.
Bishop Ittoshat will be in charge of a parish in Nunavik and will oversee Hudson Coast and Ungava deaneries.
Bishop Netser will be in charge of the parish of Arviat and will oversee Kivalliq and Kitikmeot deaneries.
Over two hundred people attended the consecration service held in Holy Trinity, Yellowknife. Michael Hawkins, the Bishop of Saskatchewan and acting Metropolitan of the ecclesiastical province of Rupert’s Land, to which the diocese of the Arctic belongs, was the main consecrator. Also present for the laying on of hands were the Primate Fred Hiltz as well as Bishops Mark MacDonald, Lydia Mamakwa, Larry Beardy, Chris Harper, Fraser Lawton, Adam Halkett, David Parsons, Darren McCartney, Chris Williams, Rob Hardwick, Geoff Woodcroft and Bill Cliff.
The preacher was the Rev. Canon George Kovoor, canon theologian for the Diocese of the Arctic, who currently resides in the Diocese of Connecticut. The service was conducted in Inuktitut, Inuinnaqtun, James Bay Cree, Gwich’in, English and French. The hymns included Holy Holy Holy, Take My Life and Let it Be, All the Way My Saviour Leads Me, All Creatures of Our God and King, Be thou My Vision and the ancient hymn used in all Anglican consecrations, Come Holy Ghost.
The new bishops stayed behind for a four-day Bishop’s School, which began after a rich feast of seal, caribou and bowhead.
Now that Ittoshat, Netser and Royal are consecrated, they immediately become members of the Order of Bishops at General Synod.
In 2016 both Arctic Bps Parsons and McCartney voted against the resolution to change the Marriage Canon to allow for same-sex marriage. It passed its first reading by a very slim margin in the Order of Bishops and requires a second reading to pass officially and change doctrine. If the three new Arctic suffragans also vote against the resolution this July at General Synod, support in the Order of Bishops could fall below the two-thirds mark required to change the Marriage Canon. (It has to pass in all three orders of bishops, clergy and laity at two consecutive synods.) TAP
