ELECTION OF PRIMATE

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 94, 15 January 1940, Page 6

ELECTION OF PRIMATE

To Be Held In Nelson Next Month PROCEDURE EXPLAINED Dominion Special Service. AUCKLAND, January 14. The impending retirement of Archbishop Averill calls for separate elections to fill the offices of Primate and Bishop of Auckland and the necessary arrangements for both are now being made. The primatial election is to be hem at the triennial session of the General Synod, which will open in Nelson on February 15, but the exact date has not yet been fixed. Archbishop Averill will preside throughout the session for the transaction of general business, and in the ordinary course bis»resignatiou will take effect on the final day. It is possible, however, that he will be asked to retain office for a further period of a few weeks, in order to deal with routine matters arising out of the proceedings. The Bishop of Christchurch, the Kt. Rev. C. West-Watson, will have charge of the election in his capacity as senior member of the Bench of Bishops. Procedure requires clerical and lay members of Synod to deliberate and vote as separate orders upon individual nominations made to them by vote of the bishops. If a nominee receives majorities of both orders he is declared elected, and in the event of a deadlock the senior bishop becomes primate. The election of the new bishop of Auckland will take place at a special session of the Diocesan Synod, which has been called for April, 10 days after the archbishop’s resignation of the See has taken effect. The Bishop of Dunedin, the lit. Ker. AV. A. R. Fitchett, has been appointed by the senior bishop as his commissary, to preside over the session. If both clergy and laity, voting as separate orders, approve a nomination, the latter will be submitted in strict, confidence to the bishops and then to the standing committees of the dioceses for confirmation. Onl.v after this has been given by a majority in each case is a nominee notified and invited to accept office. It is, therefore, probable that some little time will elapse before the result of the election is made known.