For decades, Melissa M. Skelton straddled the secular and spiritual worlds.
She did her masters in divinity at the same time as she completed her MBA. She was ordained as a priest in 1992 and worked at a parish while working as a brand manager for Procter & Gamble. Later, she juggled working as a rector with a consulting business in product marketing.
Skelton’s unorthodox background made her historic election as the 12th archbishop of the ecclesiastical province of B.C. and Yukon on the first ballot — the first female archbishop in the Anglican Church of Canada — all the more unexpected.
“Given that background I was rather astonished to be elected,” Skelton said, still in shock a day after the election Saturday when the church’s provincial electoral college chose her among three bishops who had agreed to stand for election.