When nominations closed on Tuesday, March 23, three bishops and the Dean of Sydney, Kanishka Raffel, had been entered in the nomination process for the post of Archbishop of Sydney.

The bishops are Chris Edwards, Peter Hayward and Michael Stead. 

By the deadline, all four had received the required 20 names of Synod members in support. Following safe ministry checks the nominations will be officially declared, after a period during which any nominee has the opportunity to withdraw. All have indicated they would allow their names to go forward.

A one-day ordinary session of Synod will be held at the International Convention Centre in Darling Harbour on Monday, May 3, presided over by Bishop Hayward – who is Administrator of the Diocese until a new archbishop takes up his duties. However, at the Archbishop’s election Synod – which begins on the following day – the president of the Synod will be Bishop Peter Lin, as Bishop Hayward is a nominee.

The election process begins with the full list of nominees and speeches about each one. The voting then goes through a series of rounds. In the first round, Synod considers which of the nominees will move to the first of the elimination stages, the select list. Voting will be by “houses”, with a majority required in either the House of Clergy (ordained ministers) or the House of Laity (lay people) to move onto the select list.

In the next stage, Synod will consider which names will  move to the “final” list, and this requires a majority of votes in both houses. The final list can have a maximum of three names. After speeches, there is a secret ballot (or ballots) to elect the next Archbishop of Sydney.

The nominees are (left to right in photo above):
The Very Rev Kanishka Raffel, Dean of Sydney since 2016.
Bishop Chris Edwards, Bishop of North Sydney since 2014.
Bishop Peter Hayward, Bishop of Wollongong since 2010.
Bishop Michael Stead, Bishop of South Sydney since 2015.