Anglican Diocese of Toronto
The Diocese of Toronto is an administrative division of the Anglican Church of Canada covering the central part of southern Ontario. It was founded in 1839 and is the oldest of the seven dioceses comprising the Ecclesiastical Province of Ontario. It has the most members of any Anglican diocese in Canada. It is also one of the biggest Anglican dioceses in the Americas in terms of numbers of parishioners, clergy and parishes. As of 2018, the diocese has around 230 congregations and ministries in 183 parishes, with approximately 54,000 Anglicans identified on parish rolls. In 1839 , the area of the current Diocese of Toronto made up a fifth of what was then known as the Diocese of Upper Canada, which also comprised the current Dioceses of Huron, Ontario, Algoma and Niagara, which were respectively set apart in 1857, 1861, 1873 and 1875. The Cathedral Church of St. James in Toronto is the centre of the Diocese of Toronto. The church originated as The English Church when it was first erected in 1803. It later became the seat of the Anglican bishop and was reconsecrated as the Cathedral Church of St. James in 1830. The church remained  under the direction of John Strachan for most of the early nineteenth century. He was buried on the cathedral grounds in 1867. Bishops. The diocese's first bishop was John Strachan, who became the Bishop of Toronto in 1839, after being ordained in the Anglican Church in 1803 and becoming the Archdeacon of York in 1827. In 1848, Alexander Neil Bethune was Archdeacon of York and George O'Kill Stuart Archdeacon of Kingston. By 1866, York was listed as the sole archdeaconry. The current bishop of Toronto is Andrew Asbil, who is assisted by four suffragan bishops, styled "area bishops", each  with oversight of a geographical region of the diocese. The episcopal areas and their respective suffragan/area bishops are: Each episcopal area has its own bishop and some have an archdeacon, although all function with delegated authority of the diocesan bishop, who retains jurisdiction for the whole diocese. Linda Nicholls was elected Suffragan Bishop of Toronto on the third ballot at an electoral synod on November 17, 2007, at St. Paul's Bloor Street. She was consecrated on February 2, 2008, at the Cathedral Church of St. James, becoming the third female Anglican bishop in the Diocese of Toronto and  the fourth in the Anglican Church in Canada. She became diocesan Bishop of Huron in 2016, and was elected the first female Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada in 2019. The first two women consecrated as bishops in the Anglican Church of Canada also served as suffragan bishops of Toronto: first, Victoria Matthews, elected in 1994 (for the Credit Valley area), translated to the Diocese of Edmonton as diocesan bishop in 1997 (and then became Bishop of Christchurch, New Zealand until April 2018); and second, Ann Tottenham, elected in 1997, retired in 2005, and later served as an assistant  bishop in the Diocese of Niagara. In September 2016, three new suffragan bishops were elected: Shaw is Métis, and Robertson is the first openly gay and partnered bishop to be elected in Canada. The three new bishops were consecrated on January 7, 2017. Parishes. As of 2018, the Diocese of Toronto has around 230 congregations and ministries in 183 parishes. A few of these include: The cathedral of the diocese is the Cathedral Church of St. James in Toronto.