Diocese Offers Way for Online Vestry Meetings to Meet Canonical Requirements

The Rt. Rev. Samuel Rodman

The Rt. Rev. Samuel Rodman was ordained and consecrated as the XII Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina in Duke Chapel on the campus of Duke University in Durham on July 15, 2017. He was elected on March 4, 2017.

Prior to his election, Bishop Rodman served as the Special Projects Officer for the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, a role he took on after spending five years as the diocesan project manager for campaign initiatives, where he engaged congregations, clergy and laity, in collaborative local and global mission through the Together Now campaign, helping to raise $20 million to fund these initiatives. Prior to that, he spent 16 years as the rector of St. Michael’s in Milton, Massachusetts, during which the parish established a seven-year plan that included a capital campaign for a major renovation of the church school building.

Ordained in 1988, Bishop Rodman is a graduate of Bates College and Virginia Theological Seminary. He and his wife of 32 years, Deborah, live in Raleigh. They are the parents of two adult daughters. In his free time, Bishop Rodman enjoys basketball, golf, kayaking, crosswords and creative writing.

The Rt. Rev. Anne Elliott Hodges-Copple

Anne Elliott Hodges-Copple was elected the Diocese's sixth Bishop Suffragan and the first female bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina on January 26, 2013, at the 197th Annual Convention. She was consecrated on June 15, 2013, in Duke Chapel on the campus of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.

Bishop Hodges-Copple grew up in Dallas, Texas, and attended Duke University, where she received her Bachelor of Arts in 1979 with a major in public policy. She earned her Master of Divinity from Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California, in 1984.

In the years between college and seminary and then seminary and ordination, Hodges-Copple worked as a community organizer in Massachusetts and Appalachia and as a shelter director for victims of domestic violence in North Carolina. She was ordained a deacon in 1987 and a priest in 1988.

Bishop Hodges-Copple has served her entire ordained life in the Diocese of North Carolina, working 13 years in parish ministry and 13 years as a campus minister. She served as the rector of St. Luke’s, Durham, until she was elected to the episcopate. Bishop Hodges-Copple has a particular passion for shaping mission and ministry to be attuned to the voices, needs and wisdom of disempowered communities.

In her role as Bishop Suffragan, Bishop Hodges-Copple has particular responsibilities in campus and young adult ministries, new mission starts (Galilee ministries), the Racial Justice and Reconciliation Commission, the ordination process for the diaconate, global partnerships for mission, ecumenical and interfaith collaborations and the pastoral care of retired clergy, their spouses and surviving spouses. In the spring of 2018, she led a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, her third such pilgrimage, and plans another in 2020.

Hodges-Copple is currently a member of the Executive Council for The Episcopal Church, the Board of Historic Black Colleges & Universities and the Task Force for Social Advocacy. She served on the Special Legislative Committee for Marriage at the 2015 General Convention in Salt Lake City and chaired the House of Bishops’ Legislative Committee on Social Concerns at the 79th General Convention in Austin, Texas. She is also a member of the Bishops United Against Gun Violence.

During the transition between the 11th and 12th Bishops of North Carolina, she served as Bishop Diocesan Pro Tempore, the ecclesiastical authority of the diocese.

She and her husband, John, have three adult children. John is Director of Planning for the Triangle J Council of Governments.