-THE ARCHBISHOP-

  

Bishop J. Delano Ellis II was a native of Pennsylvania and a product of the Philadelphia Public School System. He held a Bachelor of Arts Degree in History and Sociology from Howard University, a Masters Degree in Religious Education from Nazarene Seminary, as well as a Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Ecclesiology and Episcopacy from Stafford University in London, England.  Bishop Ellis was also the recipient of four honorary degrees from various Universities in the United States and the United Kingdom.

 

Bishop Ellis received his Ordination at the hands of (the Late) Bishop Ozro Thurston Jones, Sr. in 1963 and was elevated to the Episcopacy in 1970 at the hands of (the Late) Bishop Brumfield Johnson at Boston, Massachusetts.

 

Prior to Bishop Ellis’ responsibility as Senior Pastor for the Pentecostal Church of Christ in Cleveland, Ohio, he served the Church of God in Christ, headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee for over thirty-five years.  Bishop Ellis' gift for planning and organizing was beneficial to the Body of Christ across denominational barriers.  Bishop Ellis organized and developed the Adjutant’s Corp in the Church of God in Christ, and served the leader of that denomination for more than twenty-five years.  

 

In 1989, Bishop Ellis established and organized the United Pentecostal Churches of Christ.  During his tenure as head of that reformation, Bishop Ellis organized the Joint College of African-American Pentecostal Bishops Congress, which is an organization designed to train and prepare Pentecostal Bishops in their roles as episcopates.

 

After several years of committed service, the Joint College of Bishops unanimously elected Bishop Ellis to the titular rank and dignity of Metropolitan-Archbishop for that Communion of Pentecostals.

 

In 2006, Bishop Ellis was elected to the office of Senior Bishop of the Pentecostal Churches of Christ and continued to teach and mentor pastors and bishops throughout the United States in the areas of leadership and churchmanship.  

 

He also served as Adjunct Professor and Chapel preacher at Beulah Heights University in Atlanta, Georgia, our Military Community as National Chief of Chaplains for the United States Air Force Auxiliary in the Grade of Colonel, until his retirement in 2014 and authored several books and pamphlets on Worship, Church Order, Constitutions, and Sermons from the Pentecostal Pulpit.

 

Bishop Ellis shared the pastorate of the Pentecostal Church of Christ with his wife, the Reverend Doctor Sabrina Joyce Ellis, to whom he married in 1982.   He was the father to five, foster-father to one, grandfather to twenty-four, and the great-grandfather to three (one deceased).

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On September 19, 2020, Bishop Ellis was Promoted from the Church Militant to the Church Triumphant.