Bishop-elect of El Salvador Juan David Alvarado will in January of 2015 replace Bishop of El Salvador Martin Barahona who will retire. Photo: Anglican-Episcopal Church of El Salvador.

[Episcopal News Service] The Rev. Juan David Alvarado was elected bishop of the Anglican-Episcopal Church in El Salvador on Aug. 23 at St. John the Evangelist Church in San Salvador.

His consecration/installation is scheduled for Jan. 24, 2015.

Alvarado, 52, will succeed the Rt. Rev. Martín Barahona who is retiring.

Elected in 1992, Barahona became the first Salvadoran to serve as bishop. Prior to Barahona’s election and the end of El Salvador’s 1980-1992 civil war, then-Bishop of Panama James H. Ottley oversaw the church in El Salvador from Panama.

Alvarado was elected from a slate of five candidates, including two North Americans.

The other candidates were:

•  The Rev. Ricardo Bernal, Diocese of El Salvador;
• The Rev. Juan Antonio Méndez, Diocese of El Salvador;
• The Rev. Vidal Rivas, senior priest, St. Matthew’s/San Mateo Parish, Hyattsville, Maryland, Diocese of Washington; and
• The Rev. Lee Alison Crawford, vicar, Church of Our Saviour at Mission Farm and canon missioner to El Salvador, Diocese of Vermont.

Alvarado was elected on the second ballot with 35 of 50 lay votes and 8 of 14 clergy votes.

The bishop-elect is married to the Rev. Irma Alvarado; the couple has two children.

The Anglican-Episcopal Church of El Salvador, along with the Anglican and Episcopal Churches in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama and Nicaragua, make of the Anglican Church in Central America, or IARCA, as it is know by its Spanish Acronym.