Gene Robinson
Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire
Vicky Gene Robinson (born May 29, 1947) is a retired bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire. Robinson was elected bishop coadjutor in 2003 and succeeded as bishop diocesan in March 2004. Before becoming bishop, he served as Canon to the Ordinary for the Diocese of New Hampshire.
Robinson is widely known for being the first openly gay priest to be consecrated a bishop in a major Christian denomination believing in the historic episcopate, a matter of significant controversy. After his election, many theologically traditional Episcopalians in the United States abandoned the Mainline Protestant Episcopal Church, formed the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) and aligned themselves with bishops outside the Episcopal Church in the United States, a process called the Anglican realignment. His story has appeared in print and film.
In 2010, Robinson announced his intention to retire in 2013 at 65. His successor is A. Robert Hirschfeld.
Early life
Robinson's parents were poor tenant farmers in Lexington, Kentucky, who worked in the tobacco fields as sharecroppers. The family used an outhouse, drew water from a cistern, and did laundry in a cast-iron tub over an open flame.
“Gene Robinson” enters the record as bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Gene, Robinson and Bishop can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Gene Robinson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.