Historia
The Diocese of Los Angeles traces its beginnings to 1895 when the General Convention of The Episcopal Church, meeting in Minneapolis, voted to divide the new jurisdiction from the statewide, San Francisco-based Diocese of California established in 1850. The Diocese of Los Angeles originally included the state’s eight southernmost counties until 1974 when the Diocese of San Diego was formed.
Launched on Christmas Day in 1864, St. Athanasius Episcopal Church in Echo Park remains Southern California’s oldest continuing Protestant house of worship. The Diocese of Los Angeles currently unites 131 congregations and 29 schools located across Los Angeles, Orange, northwest Riverside, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara, and Ventura counties.
With history spanning the Civil War era through later decades of civil rights advocacy, the Diocese of Los Angeles is anchored in the gospel of Jesus Christ and the baptismal covenant’s call to “respect the dignity of every human being,” living out the Anglican tradition of the via media, or middle way of faith.
Integral to the diocese’s mission is the leadership of its bishops, outlined as follows.
The Rt. Rev. Joseph Horsfall Johnson
Elected bishop at age 48 by the December 1895 primary convention of the newly formed Diocese of Los Angeles, Joseph Horsfall Johnson was ordained and consecrated on February 24, 1896, in Christ Church, Detroit, where he had served as rector since 1886. The date marked the Feast of St. Matthias, and the first Southland parish organized during Johnson’s 32-year episcopate – St. Matthias Church in Whittier – was so named to honor the occasion of his consecration. Bishop Johnson – a native of Schenectady, New York – and his wife, Isabel, settled in Pasadena with their son, Reginald, who became one of Southern California’s most notable architects who designed, along with numerous residences, landmark hotels – the Santa Barbara Biltmore and La Valencia, La Jolla – as well as Pasadena’s All Saints Church and L.A.’s former St. Paul’s Cathedral on Figueroa Street north of Wilshire Boulevard downtown. He also expanded L.A.’s Hospital of the Good Samaritan, for which Bishop Johnson raised more than $1 million in support during his episcopate. Some 30 congregations were established under Bishop Johnson’s leadership, and the Neighborhood Settlement, Seamen’s Church Institute, Hillsides Home for Children, the Episcopal Home, and Harvard School became diocesan institutions. With Ellen Browning Scripps and Virginia Scripps, he founded the Bishop’s School in La Jolla. Bishop Johnson died May 16, 1928 in Pasadena at age 80 and was buried in the San Gabriel Cemetery bordering the Episcopal Church of Our Saviour.
The Rt. Rev. William Bertrand Stevens
Elected coadjutor in 1920 at age 35 and known as “Charlie Chaplin’s bishop” at the Lambeth Conference of the same year, W. Bertrand Stevens was previously rector of St. Mark’s, San Antonio, Texas, and of St. Ann’s, Brooklyn, New York, where he joined in ministry projects with financier J. P. Morgan. He became diocesan in 1928 upon Johnson’s death in office. A distinguished Phi Beta Kappa Scholar, he held a Ph.D. from New York University and held the rank of Major Chaplain in the U.S. Army Reserve. A native of Lewiston, Maine, Bishop Stevens and his wife, Violet, and their four daughters resided in South Pasadena. He saw the diocese through the Great Depression, World War II, and the oppression created by Japanese internment camps, which he vehemently opposed. He was assisted by Bishop Suffragan Robert B. Gooden, elected in 1930. Before his death at Good Samaritan Hospital in 1947 at age 62, Bishop Stevens had become deeply admired by Southern Californians for his down-to-earth ministry and good humor. An avid outdoorsman and dedicated pastor to youth, he is the namesake of Camp Stevens in Julian. He is buried in San Gabriel Cemetery.
The Rt. Rev. Francis Eric Bloy
Consecrated in 1948 to serve the diocese as its third bishop, F. Eric Bloy, born in Birchington, Kent, England in 1904, was then dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, having served previously as rector of St. James by-the-Sea, La Jolla, where his father also had been priest. Amid Southern California’s post-war building boom, the diocese grew to 188 congregations during Bishop Bloy’s 25-year episcopate, and he oversaw construction of some 45 church campuses. Bishop Bloy, for whom the diocese’s eponymous theological school is named, was student of Eastern religions and an amateur astronomer with a domed telescope at the La Cañada Flintridge home he shared with his wife, Frances. As the civil rights movement gained momentum locally and nationally, Bishop Bloy played leadership roles in mobilizing response to the 1965 Watts riots, and in forming the Parish of East Los Angeles, based at Church of the Epiphany, Lincoln Heights, in solidarity with the Chicano movement and formation of the United Farmworkers union. Before his retirement in 1973, Bishop Bloy was assisted at various times by Bishop Gooden and two other bishops suffragan, Donald J. Campbell and Ivol I. Curtis. Bishop Bloy retired in 1973. He died in 1993 at age 88 and is buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Hollywood Hills.
The Rt. Rev. Robert Claflin Rusack
L.A.’s fourth bishop, Robert C. Rusack, was enthroned in 1974 having served the diocese for a decade as bishop suffragan, elected to this office while rector of St. Augustine by-the-Sea, Santa Monica, residing in Pacific Palisades with his wife, Janice, and their daughter and son. Born in 1926 in Worcester, Massachusetts, Bishop Rusack began ordained ministry as a rural priest in Deer Lodge, Montana, after his studies at New York’s General Theological Seminary which he later served as chairman of its board of trustees. Major developments shaping the church during his tenure as diocesan included women’s ordination, prayer book revision, and the arrival in Southern California of numerous Southeast Asian refugees. A majority of members of four Southland parishes — opposing women priests and the 1979 Book of Common Prayer – voted to leave the denomination, sparking lawsuits in which the courts returned two churches to the diocese but awarded properties to the two other parishes. While not initially in favor of the ordination of the Philadelphia 11, Bishop Rusack later reversed his position and ordained Victoria Hatch as the diocese’s first woman priest in 1977. Active in the life of the Anglican Communion, Bishop Rusack attended the 1978 Lambeth Conference and later welcomed Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie to Los Angeles for the Episcopal Church’s 1985 General Convention in Anaheim. Earlier that year the diocese elected its canon to the ordinary, Oliver B. Garver Jr., as suffragan who went on to lead the diocese for nearly two years after Bishop Rusack died in office in 1986 at age 60. His ashes are interred at St. Matthew’s Church, Pacific Palisades, and in 2021 his family dedicated a Catalina Island chapel built in his memory.
The Rt. Rev. Frederick Houk Borsch
Elected and consecrated fifth bishop of Los Angeles in 1988 at age 52, Frederick H. Borsch was well known within the diocese from his tenure as dean of Church Divinity School of the Pacific, the Episcopal seminary in Berkeley, California. From that post he was named dean of the chapel at Princeton University, his alma mater. Chicago natives, Bishop Borsch and his wife, Barbara, had three sons and resided in the West L.A. neighborhood of Bel Air Skycrest. An advocate for multicultural and youth ministries, Bishop Borsch launched new initiatives in these areas, with the word “Adelante” – “forward” in Spanish – as the theme for his episcopate. In the wake of the 1992 Los Angeles uprisings, Bishop Borsch and Bishop Suffragan Chester L. Talton, elected in 1991, partnered with denomination-wide leaders to establish a credit union to aid small businesses and local reinvestment. Bishop Borsch also launched the Bishop’s Commission on LGBTQ+ Ministries advocating for full inclusion in church and society and formed the Commission on HIV/AIDS Ministry which created affordable housing for those living with the virus. Other major achievements of his episcopate included building the Cathedral Center of St. Paul in Echo Park, expanding upon a concept proposed by its first provost, J. Jon Bruno. After retiring as diocesan in 2002, Bishop Borsch returned to teaching and writing, dividing his time between L.A. and Philadelphia’s Lutheran Theological Seminary as professor of Anglican studies. Bishop Borsch died in 2017 in Philadelphia at age 81, and his ashes are interred in the columbarium at St. Augustine’s, Santa Monica.
The Rt. Rev. Joseph Jon Bruno
Elected bishop coadjutor in 1999 at age 51, J. Jon Bruno had since 1986 served as rector of St. Athanasius, Echo Park, and from 1992 as provost of the Cathedral Center. Before ordination in Los Angeles, he was a Burbank police officer and had pursued a career in professional football. A graduate of Cal-State L.A. and the Virginia Seminary, he became the first native-born Angeleno to serve as bishop diocesan. Bishop Bruno and his wife, Mary – parents of three children – resided in Pasadena and were leaders in HIV/AIDS ministries and advocates for full LGBTQ+ inclusion and marriage equality. Following the New Hampshire election of Gene Robinson as The Episcopal Church’s first openly gay bishop, a majority of members of four parishes of the Diocese of Los Angeles voted in 2004 to disaffiliate from the denomination and sought to retain church properties. After three years of vigilant legal action led by Bishop Bruno, the California Supreme Court in 2009 ruled that the four properties were held in trust by the diocese for the ministry of The Episcopal Church, establishing key precedent for similar cases in other regions of the state and nation. Two of the four Episcopal congregations were successfully restarted amid this difficult period of diocesan life, which included a Title IV disciplinary ruling against Bishop Bruno for his action to sell church property in Newport Beach. An advocate for Middle East peace with justice, Bishop Bruno established the companion relationship that L.A. continues to share with the Diocese of Jerusalem. Dedicated to interfaith solidarity, Bishop Bruno served two terms as president of the Los Angeles Council of Religious Leaders. Having chosen the theme “Hands in Healing” for his episcopate, Bishop Bruno led 14 young adults on a 2002 nationwide pilgrimage seeking an end to violence in all forms. He was assisted in local ministry by Bishop Talton, assistant bishops Robert M. Anderson and Sergio Carranza, and the diocese’s first women to be elected bishops suffragan, Diane M. Jardine Bruce and Mary Douglas Glasspool. A survivor of acute monostatic leukemia, Bishop Bruno established the diocesan Seeds of Hope ministry to provide food security and nutrition education. Bishop Bruno retired in 2017. He died in 2021 at home in La Quinta, California, at age 74, and his ashes are interred in Lazarus Chapel at St. Paul’s Commons, Echo Park.
The Rt. Rev. John Harvey Taylor
Choosing the theme “Feeding Hungry Hearts” for his episcopate, John Harvey Taylor was elected coadjutor in 2016 at age 62 and took office as bishop diocesan the following year. Crisis response – notably amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2025 L.A. County fire disaster, and injustices of a broken federal immigration system – has been central to his ministry as bishop. Bishop Taylor has championed the building of affordable housing, calling the diocese to construct new units on 25 percent of church properties. Concurrently he is a tireless advocate in matters of diversity, equity, and inclusion, seeking engagement across barriers of difference and prejudice according to race, language, geography, orientation, identification, age, and socioeconomics. He has devoted himself to promoting reconciliation, transparency, and a stronger financial and organizational foundation for the diocese’s parishes, missions, schools, and other institutions. Spouse of Kathy O’Connor, father of four, and grandfather of three, Bishop Taylor is a former newspaper reporter, director of the Nixon library, and chief of staff to former President Richard Nixon. A lifelong Episcopalian, Bishop Taylor was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1954, the son of journalists. He is a graduate of Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, and received a bachelor’s degree in political science at the University of California, San Diego, and a master of divinity at the Claremont School of Theology and Bloy House. Ordained a priest in 2004, he served as curate at St. Andrew’s, Fullerton, and in 2009 was named vicar of St. John Chrysostom Church and School in Rancho Santa Margarita. Bishop Taylor is the author of two novels, numerous newspaper and magazine articles, and daily posts to social media.
The Rt. Rev. Antonio José Gallardo Lucena
Full biographical information is here for the Rt. Rev. Dr. Antonio José Gallardo Lucena, who was elected the diocese’s 8th bishop on November 8, 2025, by Diocesan Convention, meeting in Riverside, California.
Diocesan Archives: For inquiries and resources, contact Canon Robert Williams, diocesan historiographer-archivist, rwilliams@ladiocese.org.