Presiding bishop’s 2 former dioceses vote to seek separate bishops, ending 6-year partnership

[Episcopal News Service] The dioceses of Northwestern Pennsylvania and Western New York, whose six-year partnership has served as a model for diocesan collaboration across The Episcopal Church, voted May 3 to seek separate bishops. The move effectively ends their partnership months after their former shared bishop stepped down to become the church’s presiding bishop.

“We want to say clearly: this decision does not erase the many ways God has blessed our shared life,” the two standing committee presidents, the Rev. Luke Fodor of the Diocese of Western New York and the Rev. Stacey Fussell of the Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania, said in a joint statement after the vote. “Over the past six years, we have discovered the strength that comes from walking together, learning from each other, bearing witness together and offering the world a witness of hope and collaboration.”

Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe, consecrated as Northwestern Pennsylvania’s bishop in 2007, added the role of bishop provisional of Western New York in 2019 under the two dioceses’ partnership agreement, which involved sharing staff and collaborating on ministries while remaining separate entities. Rowe resigned from both dioceses last year to take office Nov. 1 as the denominational leader.

Before Rowe’s June 2024 election as presiding bishop, the two dioceses commissioned a study of their partnership to assess its results and help discern next steps. The study found both dioceses had embraced this “experiment for the sake of the Gospel” at a time of denominational decline. The partnership, however, also faced numerous challenges, including cultural differences, lack of clarity over resource allocation and some feelings of “suspicion, mistrust … and yearning for the past.”

That report was released in March 2025. On May 3, at a special joint convention of the two dioceses, both voted overwhelmingly against seeking a new bishop together, with 70% of combined delegates opposed. The two standing committee presidents said the dioceses will begin to “realign staff and administrative resources to serve each diocese separately” by July 1. A celebration of the partnership is planned for June 19.

“This decision was made carefully and faithfully, with a deep love for the Church and a commitment to what is best for the mission and ministry of each diocese,” Fodor and Fussell said. “We give thanks for every relationship formed, every ministry strengthened and every new possibility glimpsed through our partnership. We will remain one in the Spirit even as we move forward as two dioceses.”

Rowe also reacted to the votes, releasing a joint statement with former Western New York Bishop William Franklin, whose retirement in April 2019 helped pave the way for the dioceses to partner and to share Rowe as their bishop.

“As founding bishops of the partnership, we give thanks for the past six years of collaborative ministry and all that the people of Northwestern Pennsylvania and Western New York have learned in this experiment for the sake of the gospel,” Rowe and Franklin said. “The risks that the leaders of the partnership took have catalyzed collaboration and conversation across The Episcopal Church, and we will be forever grateful to have served together with them.

“May God bless both dioceses as they continue discerning where the Holy Spirit is guiding them next.”

The partnership had originated years ago in conversations between Rowe and Franklin about the future of the Erie-based Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania and the Diocese of Western New York, based in the Buffalo area. In April 2017, when Franklin announced his plans to retire, he asked his diocesan standing committee to consider calling Rowe as provisional bishop.

When the two bishops presented the idea to a joint clergy conference in September 2017, it initially “played to mixed reviews,” Rowe told Episcopal News Service in a 2018 article about the then-pending partnership. Clergy wondered about hidden agendas. Some wished the plan were more fleshed out. The bishops enlisted their members to help decide what such a partnership might look like. More than 500 people attended eight listening sessions in the two dioceses, and in May 2018, their standing committees unanimously voted to support the idea.

That October, the dioceses voted at a jointly held convention to ratify the partnership, and Western New York elected Rowe to become its bishop provisional when Franklin retired in April 2019. “History will judge us as to the right and wrong of the choice,” Rowe said in a brief address before the votes were taken. “God? God will bless us in our faithfulness to the Gospel call – no matter our choice. And that’s all that matters.”

A year later, at the partnership’s first joint convention in October 2019, Rowe described the goal as “privileging Gospel impact over our own provincial and territorial needs and wants.”

“What we’re doing here is digging deep enough to find out what matters to us most,” Rowe said, “what’s essential to keep for the future, what’s essential to hold more lightly and, most importantly, creating the space for something new to emerge.”

The partnership, though never publicly aspiring to a merger, inspired other dioceses that were exploring similar modes of collaboration, include some that have since merged. The diocese of Eastern Michigan and Western Michigan voted to share a bishop in 2019, and in 2024, they took the final steps toward uniting as one diocese, the new Diocese of the Great Lakes. The three Episcopal dioceses in Wisconsin also joined as one in 2024 after a three-year process of discernment that involved input from Rowe and his two dioceses.

That churchwide trend continues, most actively in the dioceses of Central Pennsylvania and Bethlehem, which are on track to merge and form the new Diocese of the Susquehanna in January 2026. In Indiana, the dioceses of Indianapolis and Northern Indiana also are engaged in ongoing talks of becoming one statewide diocese. The committee leading those talks has recommended a merger, and a vote is expected in Lent 2026.

Unlike those partnerships and mergers, Northwestern Pennsylvania and Western New York were divided geographically by state lines – and, as an outside evaluation of the partnership concluded, divided by diocesan cultures that proved incompatible in some ways.

The evaluation was led by the Rev. Gay Clark Jennings, former House of Deputies president, and the Rt. Rev. Ian Douglas, former bishop of Connecticut. “While both dioceses spoke about the importance of class, NWPA identified more with the working class, while those in WNY spoke of the historic place of socially and economically privileged people in the life of the diocese, especially in the more affluent parishes in urban Buffalo,” Jennings and Douglas wrote in their 98-page report.

In addition to dozens of interviews and eight group listening sessions, their study surveyed nearly 400 people from both dioceses through a questionnaire that helped identify “key areas of consensus” about the partnership. Findings included a number of partnership strengths, including regional collaborations, Rowe’s “strategic and pastoral leadership,” cost savings and “pride in being in the vanguard of cooperative ventures between dioceses in The Episcopal Church.”

The research also identified difficulties in creating a shared identity between two different dioceses, partly because many members remained focused on “what has been lost” rather than “what could be.” Some of those surveyed also expressed dissatisfaction with partnership communications, staff turnover, lack of transparency about cost savings and lack of connection between the partnership and local congregations.

In the questionnaire, only a third of respondents said they felt the partnership had brought them closer to Jesus Christ or God’s mission. Even fewer said it had done the same for their congregations. A slim majority – about 54% – said they still favored continuing the partnership.

Much of that support appeared to have evaporated when the two conventions met jointly on May 3 at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Jamestown, New York. In the Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania, the proposal to seek a new shared bishop was defeated 3-25 in the clerical order and 11-43 in the lay order. In the Diocese of Western New York, the proposal failed in the clerical order by a vote of 14-36 and in the lay order, 45-68.

“We trust that the God who has carried us thus far will continue to lead us into new chapters of ministry, filled with hope and new life,” Fodor and Fussell, the standing committee presidents, said in their message announcing the votes.

Some of the two diocese’s non-canonical bodies may continue to work together, such as a commission on dismantling racism, Fodor said in an email to ENS, and he added that the votes to end the formal partnership should not be interpreted as a failure by either diocese.

“Failure is not even possible, for the very meaning of the word ‘experiment’ is to try,” Fodor said, “and we have definitely done that.”

– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.