On 21st April 2001, the same day that the Diocese met in Chatham, Kent for its annual Diocesan Synod, an Electoral Synod was convened to decide upon the election for Bishop Ordinary of the Diocese of the United Kingdom. The Venerable Patrick J McEune, Archdeacon and Vicar General of the Diocese since 1997 was unanimously elected and his name is now to be forwarded to the ACC College of Bishops for ratification.
If confirmed and consecrated Father McEune would succeed The Right Revd Leslie Hamlett, who left the ACC in 1997. The See has been vacant since then.
Father McEune, 46, was ordained to the diaconate in March 1992 by the Most Revd William O Lewis and was priested that October by Bishop Hamlett. In 1993 he founded St Brihtwolds, Worton, Nr Devizes, Wiltshire.