First Inuit Anglican bishop installed

IQALUIT, Nunavut Territory — Canada has its first full-fledged Inuit bishop. Andrew Atagotaaluk was installed as Anglican bishop of the Arctic in a Sept. 15 ceremony that drew hundreds of parishioners to an igloo-shaped church in this town, capital of Canada’s newest territory, Nunavut.

The 52-year-old is also the first Canadian-born bishop of the largest Anglican diocese in the world, a massive swath of land that occupies more than one-third the area of Canada and is 11 times the size of Germany. Roughly 16,000 of its 50,000 inhabitants are Anglican. Many are in isolated communities, and substance abuse and poverty are widespread.