An assisting or assistant bishop is one who is already a bishop, but may be retired and is simply hired to help out in another diocese, typically on a short-term basis. The other house, the House of Deputies , is composed of clergy and lay people elected from each diocese in the church. A diocesan bishop, in contrast, is elected by both the lay and clergy delegates at a Diocesan Convention. The Right Reverend J. Gary Gloster is suffragan bishop of the Diocese of North Carolina. The last person elected as bishop coadjutor in this Diocese was the Right Reverend Robert W. Estill in 1980.
Bishops often have clergy staff members with particular jobs that have traditional titles.
In the American church, many of these stem from British Anglican church usage. The term canon is used in a variety of ways. A canon may be an assistant to the bishop or may be on the staff of a cathedral church. A chief assistant to the bishop is called the Canon to the Ordinary , and in this Diocese that person is the Reverend Canon Marie Fleischer. An archdeacon may be an assistant to the bishop who, in some locales, functions much like the canon to the ordinary.