Eugene Taylor Sutton is the fourteenth Episcopal

Episcopal Church (United States)

The Episcopal Church is a mainline Anglican Christian church found mainly in the United States , but also in Honduras, Taiwan, Colombia, Ecuador, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, the British Virgin Islands and parts of Europe...

 Bishop of Maryland

Episcopal Diocese of Maryland

The Episcopal Diocese of Maryland forms part of Province 3 of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. It is made up of the northern and central Maryland counties of Allegany, Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Calvert, Carroll, Frederick, Garrett, Harford, Howard, and Washington...

. Consecrated at the Washington National Cathedral

Washington National Cathedral

The Washington National Cathedral, officially named the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, is a cathedral of the Episcopal Church located in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. Of neogothic design, it is the sixth-largest cathedral in the world, the second-largest in...

 on June 27, 2008, where he served as Canon Pastor, he is the first African American

African American

African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

 bishop for the diocese.

Bishop Sutton is a 1976 graduate of Hope College

Hope College

Hope College is a medium-sized , private, residential liberal arts college located in downtown Holland, Michigan, a few miles from Lake Michigan. It was opened in 1851 as the Pioneer School by Dutch immigrants four years after the community was first settled...

 in Holland, Michigan

Holland, Michigan

Holland is a city in the western region of the Lower Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated near the eastern shore of Lake Michigan on Lake Macatawa, which is fed by the Macatawa River ....

 and earned a master of divinity from Western Theological Seminary

Western Theological Seminary

Western Theological Seminary is a professional and graduate school in Holland, Michigan affiliated with the Reformed Church in America....

 in the same city. As well as serving parishes in New Jersey and Washington, D.C., he also taught at Vanderbilt University Divinity School, General Theological Seminary

General Theological Seminary

The General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church is a seminary of the Episcopal Church in the United States and is located in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan in New York....

, and New Brunswick Theological Seminary

New Brunswick Theological Seminary

New Brunswick Theological Seminary is a professional and graduate school founded in 1784, in New Brunswick, New Jersey, to educate ministers for the congregations of the Reformed Church in America...

.