The Māori branch of the Anglican Church has named Susan Wallace as bishop-elect of Te Hui Amorangi ki Te Waipounamu diocese.
Of Kai Tahu, Ngāti Whātua and Ngāti Wai, she will become the second Māori woman Anglican bishop, and the first with a moko kauae. She will become one of four women bishops in the church in Aotearoa, and the first for the Māori diocese of Te Waipounamu.
Te Hui Amorangi ki Te Waipounamu serves the South Island, including Stewart Island and the Chatham Islands.
Archbishop Don Tamihere, head of Te Pīhopatanga o Aotearoa, reflected on what Wallace brings to the role.
“The task of a modern Māori Bishop has changed from what it was 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago,” he told the church’s news site. “Susan is well-suited and prepared not only to meet the unique challenges of today’s mission and ministry, but to set the foundations for the future flourishing of our Hāhi (Church) in the decades to come.
“I am thrilled at her appointment, historic as it is for Māori and indigenous women in our global communion, and I look forward to learning from her and serving alongside her.”
She follows in the footsteps of her late father, the former bishop of Te Waipounamu, Richard Wallace, who died suddenly in 2024. The role had been vacant since his death to mark a period of mourning and to allow for a then-recently established group tasked with the appointment of bishops to review the election process.
A two-day electoral college was held two weeks ago in Christchurch where she was nominated.
Wallace said she “never, ever” thought of following so closely in her father’s footsteps.
“I thought he would be around a bit longer, that he would get to retire — but that wasn’t to be. God was ready to call him home.
“I don’t take lightly what it means to step into that legacy, or the responsibility I carry to our people, our whenua, and to speak into injustices happening here at home and around the world,” she said.
Wallace has held a number of leadership and governance roles within her iwi and the church including tumuaki (general manager) for Te Rūnanga o Makaawhio, and general manager and education director for Te Pīhopatanga o Aotearoa in the South Island. She became a kaikarakia (lay minister) in 2013 and was ordained as a priest in 2024.
Her appointment comes at a time when the church’s global community recently installed Sarah Mullally as the first woman Archbishop of Canterbury in England.
