Paul Rosbolt, senior warden of the historic Falls Church Episcopal Church, issued a statement Tuesday announcing that the church’s Vestry, with the recommendation of its Search Committee, has issued a call to the Rev. Walter Burley Strattmann “Burl” Salmon to be the next rector of the church. He reported that Rev. Salmon has accepted the call, and will begin at the church on July 1.

Rev. Salmon will become the first full-time rector at the church since the departure of the Rev. John Ohmer after seven years of service in the fall of 2019. Ohmer had led the congregation as it regained control of the historic church property after six years of illegal occupation by defectors who left the Episcopal Church in 2005 in protest, among other things, of the national church’s election of an openly-gay bishop in 2003.

Rev. Salmon, a native of Natchez, Mississippi, received his Master of Divinity degree from Yale. By virtue of accepting this new call, he will end his service as Associate Minister for Pastoral Care, Christian Education and Outreach at the Bethesda-by-the-Sea church in Palm Beach, Florida. He comes to Falls Church with his husband, Bob Henkel.