John W. Howe (bishop)

Howe was elected Coadjutor Bishop of Central Florida in 1989 and was consecrated on April 15, 1989, at the Calvary Assembly worship center in Winter Park, Florida, by Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning.^[4] He succeeded as diocesan bishop on January 1, 1990. His episcopacy reflected his conservative and evangelical views. He was one of the bishops who opposed the ordination of Gene Robinson as a bishop. He retired in 2012.

On 16 July 2020, Howe announced that he was leaving the Episcopal Church to join the Anglican Church in North America, with his wife, a female deacon. He explained that one of the main reasons for him to change denominations had been the redefinition of the traditional understanding of marriage and the way in which Bishop William Love, of Albany, was being treated for opposing same-sex marriage in his diocese. He stated that he will continue serving as Senior Pastor of the multi-denominational Lake of the Woods Church, in Locust Grove, Virginia, where he was serving for the previous five years. He will become a retired bishop of the Anglican Church in North America in the Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic.^[5]

• Bishop John Howe retiring in his own time — on his own terms