The Right Reverend Dr.
Susan Jennifer Anne Bell

Episcopal Motto: Go into all the world (Mark 16:15)

On June 1, 2018, Bishop Susan Bell became the 12th Bishop of Niagara and first woman to serve in this role. She had been elected coadjutor bishop on March 3, 2018 and was consecrated bishop on May 5, 2018.

A strategic, mission-centred, spiritual leader, Bishop Bell strives to listen and watch for where God is at work in the church and the world and then to come alongside that work. Through her leadership, the diocese and its parishes have discerned Mission Action Plans (MAPs) that are guiding the renewal of a mission-shaped Church.

Bishop Bell serves on a number of local, provincial, national, and international committees, commissions and boards. She is currently the co-chair of the Anglican-Methodist International Coordinating Committee, as well as the chair of the Ontario Provincial Commission on Theological Education. Through all of this, Bishop Bell is a sought-after retreat facilitator and conference speaker.

In 2024, Bishop Bell successfully defended her doctoral thesis, “The Form and Character of a True Pastour”: Recoding the Priest in George Herbert’s The Country Parson; an exploration of The Country Parson within its 17th century ecclesiastical and political context. She received her Doctor of Theology degree conjointly from Wycliffe College and the University of Toronto.

In 2022, Trinity College, in the University of Toronto, conferred a Doctor of Divinity (honoris causa) degree upon Bishop Bell. The honorary degree was granted in recognition of Bishop Susan’s "distinguished pastoral leadership as the 12th Bishop of Niagara, and in recognition of her innovative thinking and future-oriented work in promoting mission and congregational development, and in re-visioning congregational identity, in the Anglican Church of Canada."

In 2019, Bishop Bell received the degree of Doctor of Divinity (jures dignitatus) from Wycliffe College, in the University of Toronto.

Born in 1966, Bishop Bell grew up in the Diocese of Niagara’s see city, Hamilton. She attended McMaster University where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. Having a lifelong love of music, vocal performance is an area of special interest to Bishop Bell. After her undergraduate studies, she pursued a Master of Divinity degree at Wycliffe College in the University of Toronto. After graduating from seminary, Bishop Bell was ordained a deacon in 1997 and a priest in 1999 by the Diocese of Toronto.

At the time of her election, Bishop Bell served as the canon missioner of the Diocese of Toronto, an associate priest at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Toronto, and an honorary assistant at St. James Cathedral, Toronto. She has also served as the senior chaplain at Havergal College in Toronto, the national team leader for Fresh Expressions Canada, and as member of the Board of Threshold Ministries.