The Right Reverend John Bryson Chane was consecrated the Eighth Bishop of Washington, DC in June 2002 and retired in December 2011. As Bishop he served 98 schools and churches in the District and Maryland. He served as President and CEO of the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation, overseeing the operations of Washington National Cathedral and the three schools on the Cathedral Close. Washingtonian Magazine named him as one of the 150 most influential leaders in the District of Columbia. He was named as one of the 50 most prominent leaders in the Anglican Communion by the London Telegraph. A leader in interreligious dialogue, he has travelled to Iran on seven occasions to meet with academics, clerics and members of the Majlis. He has met extensively with former Iranian Presidents, Mohammad Khatami, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and while attending the World Against Violence and

Extremism Conference in Iran, Hassan Rouhani. In 2011 the bishop was one of four members of an interfaith delegation that travelled to Tehran to release the American hikers held by Iranian authorities. Bishop Chane is one of the few from the West to meet with and engage in discussion regarding theology and the history of US/Iranian relations with Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khameni, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Bishop Chane worked extensively with the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC as an author, conference leader and participant in the U.S. Islamic World Forum held annually in Doha, Qatar. He continues to participate with the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and Search for Common Ground on matters of nation/state reconciliation and the role of religion and its impact on geopolitical stability.

The Bishop has been a frequent speaker and has written extensively on the role of religion in a post-modern, secular world. He has been a frequent presenter at the Chautauqua Institution in New York and continues to serve Washington National Cathedral as Senior Advisor for Interreligious Dialogue.

He is a graduate of Boston University, and Yale Divinity School. The Bishop has received honorary doctorates from Virginia Theological Seminary, Episcopal Divinity, Cambridge and the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale. He was selected by the United States Department of State to serve as a delegate participating at the OSCE conference on Human Rights and Religious Freedom held in Astana, Kazakhstan.

He has been a frequent Presenter on the role of Religion and Track 2 Diplomacy at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, at the Pentagon and at the Secretary of State’s Open Forum at the Department of State.

Bishop Chane currently resides in San Diego, California with Karen his wife and continues to serve the Episcopal Church as the Assisting Bishop of the Diocese of San Diego while continuing his work in the Middle East and the Levant engaging in public and theological diplomacy, seeking peaceful solutions to international conflicts.