Paul V. Marshall

Paul Victor Marshall (July 25, 1947 – October 21, 2024) was an American author and prelate, who served as Bishop of Bethlehem from June 29, 1996 to December 31, 2013.

Biography Marshall was born in 1947 in New York City to Victor William Marshall (1919-2008) and Frances Mary Augusta Doerrie Marshall (1923-2010); he was raised in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. He grew up in the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS). He received his B.A. from Concordia College (Indiana) in 1969 and his M. Div. from Concordia Seminary (Missouri) in 1973. He was ordained as a pastor in the LCMS. Between 1972 and 1977, he served as a chaplain in the US Army, after which he joined the Episcopal Church and was ordained deacon and priest in 1978 for the Diocese of Fond du Lac.

He earned his Doctor of Theology from General Theological Seminary in 1982, where he was a Fellow and Lecturer in Homiletics, Latin and Liturgics between 1979 and 1982. Between 1979 and 1982, he served as assistant at Holy Trinity Church in Long Island, New York, after which he became rector of Christ Church in Babylon, New York. Subsequently, he was also professor of Liturgics and Homiletics and chaplain at the George Mercer School of Theology in Garden City, New York. In 1989, he became an associate professor at Yale Divinity School.

On December 2, 1995, Marshall was elected as the eighth Bishop of Bethlehem on the third ballot during the diocesan convention. He was consecrated on June 29, 1996, by Bishop Robert D. Rowley of Northwestern Pennsylvania, and co-consecrated by Mark Dyer and Lloyd E. Gressle, both former Bishops of Bethlehem, in St Stephen's Pro-Cathedral, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

During his tenure, the Diocese of Bethlehem in 2001 formed a companionship relationship with the Diocese of Kajo-Keji in the southernmost part of South Sudan, along the Ugandan border. In 2007, the New Hope capital campaign was launched, with the majority of its goal dedicated to Kajo-Keji. By 2012 five elementary schools, two secondary schools and a college had been constructed in Kajo-Keji with the funds collected in the Diocese of Bethlehem.