Paula J. Schmitt, Latrobe, Pa., was elected June 5 to serve a six-year term as bishop of the Allegheny Synod of the ELCA. The election took place during an online synod assembly.
Schmitt was elected on the fifth ballot, with 121 votes. The Rev. Scott Klimke, pastor of Mount Calvary Lutheran Church, Johnstown, Pa., received 101 votes.
The bishop-elect has served as interim pastor of Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church in Latrobe since 2020. Prior to that she served as assistant to the bishop in the Allegheny Synod from 2014 to 2020; pastor of Bethany Lutheran Church in Altoona, Pa., from 2010 to 2014; pastor of Trinity (Sidman, Pa.) and St. John (Summerhill, Pa.) Lutheran churches from 2008 to 2010; and executive assistant at the ELCA churchwide organization in Chicago from 2006 to 2008.
