Getlein will become the center's director for strategic communications, according to the organization's website. In addition, he will focus on the expansion of health care in Virginia and initiate several strategic developments as envisioned by the center's board of directors.

He will be succeeded by Henry D.W. Burt, a former member of the diocesan staff. Burt will join the staff on March 17 to provide a time of transition. Getlein is scheduled to leave his diocesan post on April 1.

"I am very saddened with Patrick's departure but grateful for his long service to the diocese and excited about his sense of vocation in continuing to serve the wider church in his new position," Virginia Bishop Peter Lee said in a February 29 letter to the diocese. 

Getlein joined the diocesan staff in 1993, after being on the faculty at Christchurch School in Middlesex County, Virginia. According to Lee's letter, Getlein began working as the managing editor of the Virginia Episcopalian and became assistant secretary of the diocese in 1996. He took over as editor of the diocesan newspaper and communications director in 1998.

He left to pursue other interests in 2000, but Lee asked him to return in 2002 as secretary of the diocese after the death of Canon Harriet A. "Happy" Pullman, who had been serving in that post.

Lee said that Getlein has worked closely with the Interfaith Center for Public Policy for a number of years and sits on the center's board. 

"Patrick was first asked to consider joining the staff of the Interfaith Center by its executive director, the Rev. Douglas Smith, in December 2006, but Patrick and Doug agreed to defer acting on that invitation until now," Lee wrote.
 
Burt, the incoming secretary, is a 1987 graduate of the University of the South at Sewanee and holds his law degree from the College of William and Mary. He grew up at The Falls Church and has long been associated with St. George's Camp at Shrine Mont, where he served as a counselor and later director of St. George's Camp and where he met his wife, Mitzi van der Veer, according to Lee's letter.

Burt was the first bishop's clerk from1987 to 1988 and worked as diocesan deployment officer in 1992-1999, when he went to law school. He was an associate in the litigation group at Troutman Sanders, a major law firm in Richmond, Virginia, from 2002 to 2005.  In 2005, he became corporate counsel and government affairs manager at CarMax Inc., an online automobile-purchasing site. He has just completed a three-year term on the Virginia Standing Committee.

Getlein will continue to hold the office of diocesan registrar, providing continuity for the oversight of the diocese's archives and records, Lee said. 

Both men and their families are members at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, Oregon Hill, in Richmond.

"The Diocese of Virginia is strengthened by a long history of effective lay leaders, both volunteer and staff, and this transition is a sign of the continuity of that leadership," Lee wrote.