The Right Reverend Peter Eaton

Bishop

The Right Reverend Peter Eaton

The Right Reverend Peter Eaton has been the Bishop of Southeast Florida since 9 January 2016.

Bishop Eaton was elected the Bishop Coadjutor of Southeast Florida (the assistant bishop who succeeds the bishop on retirement) on 31 January 2015 at a special convention of the Diocese at Trinity Cathedral, Miami. He was ordained to the episcopate on 9 May 2015, and he became the Bishop of Southeast Florida on the retirement of the Right Reverend Leo Frade on 9 January 2016. Bishop Eaton was seated as the diocesan bishop at a special liturgy at Trinity Cathedral, Miami, on 30 January 2016. Lord Williams of Oystermouth, the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, was the preacher.

Bishop Eaton was born on 28 August 1958 in Washington DC. A life-long Anglican, he is the son, grandson, and nephew of priests, and he has lived and served in three Provinces of the Anglican Communion. His father was the late Reverend Dr Wade Eaton, who taught at Codrington College, Barbados, and the Seminario Episcopal and the Seminario Evangélico in Puerto Rico. His grandfather was the late Senator Wayne Morse, who represented Oregon in the US Senate from 1944 to 1969, and his uncle was the late Right Reverend Francisco Reus-Froylán, the first native-born bishop of Puerto Rico. Raised in New England, Barbados, Puerto Rico, and London, he read Classics at King's College, London; Theology at Queens' College, Cambridge; and was trained for the priesthood at Westcott House, Cambridge. Between university and theological college, he served for a year as the Pastoral Assistant at Saint George’s Anglican Church in Paris (France). He has twice been a Fellow-in-Residence at the School of Theology, Sewanee (1995 and 2014).

Bishop Eaton was ordained to the diaconate on the Feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, 29 June 1986, by his uncle, Bishop Reus, at the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Santurce, PR, by Letters Dimissory from the Archbishop of Canterbury. He was ordained to the priesthood on the same feast in 1987 by the late Archbishop Robert Runcie in Canterbury Cathedral.

Bishop Eaton served as the Assistant Curate of the Parish of All Saints, Maidstone, Kent, UK, from 1986 to 1989; the Fellows' Chaplain of Magdalen College, Oxford, UK, from 1989 to 1991, where he also did graduate research in early Christian history and literature; the Associate Rector of Saint Paul's, Salt Lake City, UT, from 1991 to 1995, where he was also Canon Theologian to the Bishop of Utah from 1991 to 2001; the Rector of Saint James, Lancaster, PA, from 1995 to 2001; and the Dean of Saint John's Cathedral, Denver, CO, from 2002 to 2015. In Denver he was also an adjunct faculty member of Iliff School of Theology from 1995 to 2015, where he taught Anglican theology and liturgy.

In 2004 he and Kate Gleason were married at Saint John's Cathedral. A fourth-generation Coloradoan and life-long Episcopalian, Kate is a resource development professional, and has worked for many organisations, including the University of Denver, Habitat for Humanity, Mercy Housing, and Food for the Poor. Currently, Kate is the Director of Individual Giving at the New World Symphony in Miami. She was part of the development team of the Wilderness at Saint John's Cathedral, Denver, in 2007, one of the most innovative and longest-lived new worshipping communities in the Church, and in 2010 she founded Mishkhah, an organization that seeks “to reveal the mystery of Christ by stirring the senses and opening the heart.” She has helped a number of congregations across the Church develop new communities.

Bishop Eaton has edited or contributed to several books, and has written numerous articles and book reviews.