Meet The Rt. Rev. William Bower, SSC - BISHOP COADJUTOR

The Right Reverend William Bower, SSC, was elected as the Bishop Coadjutor of the Diocese of New Orleans on June 12, 2026. Presently, he also serves as the Episcopal Visitor (Bishop) of the Diocese of the Eastern United States, with both dioceses being part of the Anglican Catholic Church.

Before his role in the Eastern US, Bishop Bower was unanimously elected and installed as the 4th Bishop Ordinary of the Diocese of the Eastern United States on June 23, 2022. During his tenure, the diocese witnessed significant growth and improved cohesion among the clergy.

In September 2020, he was elected Bishop Suffragan of the Diocese of the West in the Anglican Church in America, and he was consecrated on July 10, 2021. His ministry began to take shape in July 2019 when he started filling in at St. Mary of the Angels parish and took on the role of interim rector in August of that year. For over two years, he provided pastoral leadership, guiding the parish through a difficult legal crisis and helping it achieve stability, including the search for and training of a permanent parish priest. From 2014 to 2019, he supported two Anglican parishes in Atlanta, Georgia, prior to becoming the founding rector of St. Columba’s Anglican Church in Lancaster, California, where he served from 2002 to 2013.

At the diocesan level, Bower has played a significant role, serving as Canon to the Ordinary for three bishops and participating in nearly every diocesan committee. He is also a long-standing member of the priestly society, Societas Sanctae Crucis (Society of the Holy Cross).

Bower was incardinated in the Anglican Church in America in July 2000 and was conditionally ordained to the priesthood by Bishop James Gordon Stewart in 2002. He embarked on a degree-by-research program at the University of Oxford in 2001, earning a Master of Philosophy in Theology in 2013.

Before his transition to Anglicanism, Bower was an Eastern Orthodox clergyman, initially serving in a non-canonical Old Calendar jurisdiction as both a deacon and a priest, before joining the Orthodox Church in America. In 1997, he completed the OCA’s Late Vocations Program and was ordained a deacon by Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald). From 1997 to 2000, he attended St. Tikhon's Orthodox Theological Seminary and served at numerous parishes.

Throughout his over 30 years of service to the Church, Bower has maintained a bi-vocational ministry, balancing full-time secular work with his pastoral duties.  Having retired from secular work in 2026, his Lordship devotes all of his time and his life to the ministry.