by Cary Patrick | Director of Communication, Diocese of Atlanta

The Rt. Rev. Robert Tharp, the retired Episcopal bishop of East Tennessee, will serve as assisting bishop in the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta during the interim, until a new bishop can be elected and consecrated next year.

Tharp presided at the annual reaffirmation of ordination vows April 18 at the Cathedral of St. Philip in Atlanta, and began his official time with the diocese on May 1. He will serve until a new bishop is consecrated, which could occur as early as May 2001. Tharp will continue to reside in Knoxville,Tenn., and will be in the Diocese of Atlanta for eight days each month.

The Standing Committee, as ecclesiastical authority of the diocese until a new bishop is consecrated, is encouraging the 10 convocations in the diocese to move soon to elect their two members of the Nominating Committee for the ninth bishop of Atlanta. The tentative schedule calls for an election in mid-February 2001, with the consecration to follow later in the spring.

Tharp served as bishop of East Tennessee from 1991 until his retirement in 1999. In this "retirement," he is already chair of the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief. He is also the chair-elect for the program committee at Kanuga Conferences and is on the board of the Atlanta-based Episcopal Media Center.

A native of Orlando, Fla., Tharp was graduated from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn. He decided to enter seminary while in the Army and earned a M.Div. degree from Seabury-Western Theological Seminary in 1956.

He served several churches in Florida; then he studied contemporary theology during a sabbatical at the University of London.

In 1969, Tharp became rector of St. Peter's Church, Columbia, Tenn., following the Rev. Frank K. Allan, later the eighth bishop of Atlanta. Tharp served in Columbia until 1978, when he became canon to the ordinary for the Diocese of Tennessee.

The Diocese of East Tennessee was created in 1985 by division of the Diocese of Tennessee, and Tharp was its second bishop, succeeding Bishop William E. Sanders.

In 1989, Tharp traveled to Africa as the Episcopal Church's representative to the Partners-in-Mission Consultation for the provinces of Burundi, Rwanda and Zaire.

Bishop Tharp has been married since 1981 to Ann Bradford Tharp and has two children from his previous marriage.