The Rt. Rev. Charles Glenn vonRosenberg, Third Bishop of East Tennessee

The Right Reverend
Charles G. vonRosenberg

Third Bishop of the Diocese of East Tennessee

consecrated Feb 27, 1999

Download photo • Convention addresses • Index to sermons • Contact the bishop
Bishop Sanders' biography page • Bishop Tharp's biography page

The bishop's addresses
to East Tennessee's diocesan conventions:

The 24th Annual Convention, Jan. 25, 2008 [text] [audio]
The 23rd Annual Convention, Feb. 9, 2007
The 22nd Annual Convention, Feb. 3, 2006
The 21st Annual Convention, Feb. 5, 2005
The 20th Annual Convention, Feb. 7, 2004
The 19th Annual Convention, Feb. 8, 2003
The 18th Annual Convention, Feb. 9, 2002
The 17th Annual Convention, Feb. 10, 2001
The 16th Annual Convention, Feb. 12, 2000
The 15th Annual Convention, Feb. 26, 1999,
on the eve of his ordination and consecration
as third bishop of the Diocese of East Tennessee.

The Rt. Rev. Charles Glenn vonRosenberg was consecrated third bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of East Tennessee on Feb. 27, 1999. He was elected Oct. 17, 1998, during a special meeting of the 14th Annual Convention of the diocese, succeeding the Rt. Rev. Robert Gould Tharp, who retired March 1, 1999.

Bishop vonRosenberg has under his pastoral and administrative care 45 parishes and five worshiping communities in East Tennessee and northern Georgia. The bishop's responsibilities are to visit each congregation, preaching, celebrating the Holy Eucharist and confirming individuals into the Episcopal Church in the apostolic tradition of the laying on of hands.

As bishop, he ordains priests and deacons and joins in the ordination of other bishops of the church. In these rites, through the laying on of hands, the continuity with the early church of the apostles is demonstrated.

Bishop vonRosenberg presides over the annual diocesan conventions and has administrative responsibility over diocesan activities.

Born in Fayetteville, N.C., on July 11, 1947, Charles vonRosenberg graduated from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, with a bachelor of arts in 1969. In 1973 he married Annie Jones, a native of Alexandria, Va. The vonRosenbergs have two sons, two daughters-in-law and five grandchildren.

He earned his master of divinity degree from Virginia Theological Seminary in 1974. Early in his episcopate, the University of the South's School of Theology awarded him an honorary doctor of divinity.

Ordained as a priest in 1975, he served as rector/vicar of four small churches in and around Bellhaven, N.C. He was vicar and rector of churches in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina from 1976 until 1989. In 1989, he became the canon to the ordinary of the Diocese of Upper South Carolina, where he served until 1994, when he accepted a call to be rector of St. James Episcopal Church in Wilmington, N.C.

While rector of Church of the Resurrection, Greenwood, S.C., vonRosenberg served three years as chairman of the World Mission Program Group for the Diocese of South Carolina. As canon to the ordinary, he served as diocesan staff resource person for that group. Through his involvement with the program group, he organized and led mission trips to Haiti.

Bishop vonRosenberg serves in the House of Bishops, and he began an appointment to the churchwide Standing Commission on Ministry Development inn 2006. As bishop of one of the University of the South's 28 owning dioceses, he is ex officio on its board of trustees; he also was elected to the university's board of regents.

He previously served on the churchwide Jubilee Advisory Board, on the Benefits Research Advisory Committee of the Church Pension Fund and on the national Commission of Diocesan Executives. As a priest, he was elected as a clerical deputy to the 1991 General Convention in Phoenix and the 1997 General Convention in Philadelphia.

For recreation, vonRosenberg enjoys playing golf, sailing, reading, walking and spending time with his family.