Diocese of Albany calls Michael Smith as assisting bishop during transition

Posted Aug 23, 2021

The Rt. Rev. Michael G. Smith. Photo: Diocese of Albany

[Diocese of Albany] Bishop Michael G. Smith has accepted a call from the Standing Committee of the Diocese of Albany to serve as assisting bishop during the interim period before the election of the next diocesan bishop. While the Standing Committee will remain the ecclesiastical authority of the diocese, Smith will provide episcopal ministry focusing on sacramental and pastoral responsibilities, including regular regional confirmations.

Smith previously served as bishop of the Diocese of North Dakota for 15 years. Since then, he has served as part-time assistant bishop of Dallas, where he teaches “Ascetical Theology and Spiritual Practices” through the Stanton Center for Ministry Formation. He is also a part-time assisting bishop of the Navajoland Area Mission, where he organizes the Navajoland Iona Collaborative, working in the formation of Indigenous leaders from the Four Corners region and the Diocese of Alaska.

Smith is the chair of the Communion Partners Steering Committee, a fellowship of ordained and lay Anglicans from the U.S., Canada, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Colombia and Indigenous First Nations who are committed to engaging the ministry of reconciliation by helping to keep theological conservatives and theological liberals in the discernment processes of the Anglican Communion. He was a guest and participant in the most recent Global South conferences held in Egypt and Thailand.

An enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation of Oklahoma and a Benedictine oblate of St. John’s Abbey, he lives in Minnesota when he is not on the road. His wife, the Rev. Lisa White Smith, is the rector of a parish there and they are the parents of three grown children and grandparents of nine. “I look forward to discerning and supporting what God is doing in the next chapter of the history of the Diocese of Albany,” says Smith.


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