[Episcopal News Service] The Rt. Rev. Elliot L. Sorge, eighth bishop of the Diocese of Easton, died Dec. 6 in Centennial, Colorado. He was 82.

Funeral services will be held at 10:30 a.m. on Dec. 10 at St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church in Centennial. Sorge and his wife, Marjorie, were living in Centennial, a suburb of Denver. A memorial will be held in Easton early in 2012.

Bishop Sorge was the bishop of South Central Brazil (1971-1977) and of Easton (1983-1993). He served on the staff of the Episcopal Church Center in New York as officer for the development of ministry, beginning in 1977. Under his tenure, the unit underwent an extensive reorganization and operated through a series of networks that served parish needs in evangelism, education, youth ministries and lay development, and the wider church through deployment and seminary coordination, according to a Diocesan Press Service story about his election in Easton.

Sorge was elected on the first ballot April 30, 1983 at the cathedral in Easton, the see city of the diocese on the eastern shore of Maryland. He succeeded the Rt. Rev. W. Moultrie Moore.

A native of Indiana, Sorge was a graduate of De Pauw University and Seabury-Western Theological Seminary. He served missions and parishes in Ellendale, Fargo and Oakes, North Dakota from his ordination in 1954 until he went to Brazil as a missionary 10 years later.

He was elected bishop of the newly created Diocese of South-Central Brazil in the Igreja Episcopal do Brasil and was consecrated in Sao Paulo on Jan. 31, 1971. He served until 1977.

In addition to his wife, Sorge is survived by three children, Brian D. Sorge, the Rev. Marianne Sorge Ell, and Ruth L. Sorge.