Ecclesiastical Province of Ontario, succeeding Archbishop Colin Johnson, who stepped down from the role in October. Archbishop Germond was elected and consecrated during a meeting of Provincial Synod, held in Ottawa Oct. 9-12.
The Ecclesiastical Province of Ontario covers most of the territory of the political province plus part of western Quebec. It includes the dioceses of Algoma, Huron, Moosonee, Niagara, Ontario, Ottawa and Toronto. As metropolitan, Archbishop Germond will serve as president of the province’s Synod and its House of Bishops, chair of its provincial council and bishop of the Diocese of Moosonee, while remaining bishop of the Diocese of Algoma.
Archbishop Germond is the third woman in the Anglican Communion to have the title “archbishop,” and the second in Canada after Archbishop Melissa Skelton, who was made metropolitan of the Ecclesiastical Province of British Columbia and Yukon last May.
She said her first priority as metropolitan would be to call the people of the ecclesiastical province to ponder their identity as children of God, and the centrality of Christ in the church. “We’re not a people who gather around the archbishop, or who gather around a priest—we gather around Christ, and we gather around Christ’s gospel,” she said. “I really want us to think about that, and what that looks like as a province, because Christ is our unity and I think that alone will draw us closer together as a people.”
She said she also wanted to foster the growth of relationships among the dioceses in the province.
Anglican Journal
