BANGOR – The Rev. Canon Stephen Lane was the overwhelming choice Friday of clergy and laity to serve as the ninth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Maine.

He was elected at the 188th annual diocesan convention at the Bangor Civic Center on the first ballot. Lane was one of three candidates nominated to replace Bishop Chilton R. Knudsen, 61, who will retire next year after leading the state’s 17,000 Episcopalians for a decade.

Lane, 58, is the canon for deployment and ministry development in the Diocese of Rochester, N.Y.

The two other candidates were the Rev. Linda L. Grenz, 57, of Leeds, Mass., and New York City, N.Y., and the Rev. Debra Kissinger, 46, of Bethlehem, Pa.

“Apart from beauty of Maine, what attracted me initially to the diocese are the issues and opportunities it’s facing,” Lane said in a phone interview Friday afternoon. “They are similar to the ones we’re dealing with in upstate New York that also has small rural congregations, an aging population and economic challenges. I know about that situation. I’ve been dealing with it.

“It really was a case of my offering my gifts, then seeing how God and the people responded,” he said.

Th answer from those voting Friday was resounding support for Lane. Of the 220 lay delegates voting, 140 voted for Lane, and of the 124 clergy delegates voting, 96 voted for him. Grentz received 42 votes from lay delegates and 26 from clergy. Kissinger garnered 38 votes from lay delegates and two from clergy.

All clergy, including those who have retired, are eligible to vote for bishop. Congregations select delegates to represent them at the annual conventions.

“He brings a fresh vision of how to be church in the 21st century to the diocese,” the Rev. Carolyn Metzler, 52, rector of St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Winn, said of Lane. “He has the pastoral experience, the humility and the ability to connect with our people in the rural areas and small churches.”

Nancy Dymond, 50, of Bangor was a lay delegate to the convention from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Bangor. She said after the balloting that all three candidates were qualified to lead the diocese.

“I think from talking with other delegates that they were impressed with his experience,” she said. “They also feel he’s really going to listen to the people in the diocese. I think he has a good ear for the work.”

Lane is expected to be consecrated as bishop coadjutor in April and take over as bishop in September.

Ordained in 1978, he has served in upstate New York in a number of congregations and diocesan staff roles. He also served for six years as a member of the executive council of the Episcopal Church. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Rochester and a Master of Divinity from Colgate-Rochester, Bexley Hall, Crozer seminaries, also in Rochester.

The Rochester diocese serves 12,000 members and 52 congregations in upstate New York, where Lane has lived his entire life. The Maine diocese has 17,000 members and 67 congregations.

Lane and his wife, Gretchen, a special education teacher, expect to relocate to Maine in early April. The couple have three grown children and four grandchildren.

“I’m delighted that the convention was so clear about who they want as their next bishop,” Knudsen said after Lane’s election was announced shortly before noon. “Electing him on the first ballot is a clear signal that they are ready to begin their ministry with him.”

She was elected the first female bishop to serve the diocese in November 1997 on the fifth ballot. Knudsen succeeded the Right Rev. Edward C. Chalfant, who went on paid leave in April 1996 after it became public that he had an affair with an unmarried woman. The next month, the statewide Standing Committee asked Chalfant to resign when allegations were made of an abuse of power.

Knudsen will visit family in Europe and rest next fall, then do missionary work in Haiti, she said of her retirement plans.

She and Lane will attend the Lambeth Conference in Canterbury, England, next summer. Bishops from around the globe are expected to decide whether action will be taken against the Episcopal Diocese of the U.S. for the election of a gay bishop in New Hampshire three years ago.