Bishop announces search for his successor to begin

Bishop Ted Gulick announced last night at the Trustees and Council meeting that he has asked the diocese's Standing Committee to begin the search process to find the diocese's next bishop. The announcement was a surprise during a meeting, held at Christ Episcopal Church in Elizabethtown, for which the main agenda item was the diocese's preliminary budget for 2009.

Explaining that he began thinking about this a year ago and "after having tried the decision on for a year... backed way, and thought about it again," the bishop said it became "clear" to him and Barbara this summer that this is the "season in the life of the Diocese of Kentucky for us to find my successor." Now in his 15th year as bishop, he said they feel a need to reside closer to their family in Virginia. The Gulicks have three grandchildren, all under 3 and ½ years old, with a fourth due to arrive in March, and they have aging parents. His father will be 89 in December and Barbara's mother is in the early stages of dementia, he said. "Life has seasons, and if I could bring my family on the east coast to west, I would," he said. "I think the last two years of my episcopate in Kentucky have to be intentional, including the decision that I have made."

The search for a new bishop will begin on Oct. 29 when the Standing Committee meets with Bishop Clay Matthews, who directs all of the searches for bishops in The Episcopal Church. Describing the search as "a significant process" that takes at least 18 months, Gulick said that finding his successor, who will become the diocese's eighth bishop, is "one of the most important parts of my ministry." About his role in the diocese in the interim, he assured them, "I don't have the nature to be a very good lame duck, so my approach is to be the bishop for the next two years but to put this process carefully and intentionally in place."

Breaking the silence that followed the bishop's announcement, Chancellor Rob Beard told the bishop, "We're all going to be thinking about it, and how it's going to affect us in our lives. I know it has been a long process for you. If this is what you want, if this is what you think you need to do, I'm all for you, but I think this is a difficult, interesting season in diocesan life and I think we're going to have a difficult time finding some one who understands us, who works for us the way you have."

The bishop's announcement came at the end of his report to the Trustees, after he spoke about this summer's Lambeth Conference, which he said had been "renewing, reconverting, restoring" for him. "It made me excited about my vocation as a bishop and the responsibility of that office. I never felt more connected to the Anglican family, and I'm deeply appreciative though not utterly uncritical of the leadership of the archbishop of Canterbury. It was an amazing spiritual experience. Probably I would say the spiritual high point of my life, certainly over an experience of three weeks in duration. I think that the leadership of the archbishop was absolutely correct at this moment in the life of the communion."