International: Primate for Canada

Peeking through the windows of the chapter house of Montreal's Anglican Cathedral one day last week, newshawks discerned purple episcopal robes flashing dimly. Within the shadowy Cathedral which was locked, barred and bolted, little knots of laymen and churchmen gathered whispering. No speeches were permitted in the election they were holding to fill the primacy of the Church of England in Canada. This lordship of 1,232,000 Anglicans had been vacant since the death last summer of Most Rev. Clarendon Lamb Worrell, Archbishop of Nova Scotia. Once held according to seniority, the Primacy became elective under a system by which Canada's 27 bishops and archbishops propose names to an electoral college.

Five times last week did the bishops in the chapter house send slates to the college in the Cathedral. Five times did the names on the slate fail of a majority vote. Then on the sixth slate presented the electors agreed upon Rt. Rev. Derwyn Trevor Owen, 58, bishop of Niagara and Toronto. Born in England like most of Canada's 1,600 Anglican clergymen, he was educated in Toronto and Lennoxville, Que., held rectorships in Toronto and Hamilton, became bishop in 1925.