The election took place in San Diego,...

The election took place in San Diego, but the newest Lutheran bishop-elect in Southern California, the Rev. Robert L. Miller of Fullerton, hopes to carry out his new duties from an Orange County office.

“I asked the synod that I not have to move from my home in Orange County,” Miller said following his recent election as bishop for 122 congregations to the south and east of the Los Angeles area and in Hawaii.

The synod is one of three California districts in the new Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the result of a three-denomination merger. The Rev. Roger Anderson, 52, of Thousand Oaks and the Rev. Lyle G. Miller, 50, of Fresno were also elected bishops for synods encompassing their hometowns.

Robert Miller, 54, who has pastored the 1,000-member Fullerton First Lutheran Church since 1977, defeated the Rev. A. Everett Nielsen, 200-196, on the fifth ballot at the Pacifica Synod convention in San Diego last month. Miller and Nielsen were ordained by the soon-to-be-defunct American Lutheran Church and Lutheran Church in America, respectively.

The headquarters’ location for the new synod is one of the matters to be considered Aug. 14 by the synod’s council. Miller said he will begin his bishop duties full time Nov. 1. The new denomination officially begins its existence Jan. 1.

Bishop-elect Lyle Miller, who will oversee 217 congregations in Northern California and northern Nevada, won his post by defeating, 409-281, Bishop Stanley E. Olson, the outgoing bishop of the Lutheran Church in America’s southwestern district based in Los Angeles.

CONVENTIONS

Thousands of delegates are expected in Los Angeles at the Westin Bonaventure this weekend for the opening convention activities of the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World. The interracial denomination, headed by Presiding Bishop James A. Johnson of St. Louis, is part of the “Oneness” or “Jesus Only” wing of Pentecostalism, which insisted that members should be baptized in Jesus’ name only and not in the name of the Trinity. In a workshop at 1:30 p.m. today, Joseph Barbera will talk about Hanna-Barbera Productions’ Bible stories on videocassettes, whose first six titles have sold 400,000 copies. The convention ends Aug. 9.

Organizers of the first American Buddhist Congress, a previously announced gathering to be held in Los Angeles and designed to give the religion a greater presence in this country, have set the dates and place for the historic meeting. It is to be held Nov. 10-12 at the Kwan Um Sa Korean Temple at 4265 West 3rd St., according to the Venerable Havanpola Ratanasara, interim co-chairman of the organizing committee.

CONGREGATIONS

An ecumenical service of concern for possible Central American “death squad” victims in Los Angeles is to be held 1 p.m. Sunday at First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles. Father Luis Olivares, pastor of Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church, will be the principal speaker. The Unitarian Church at 2936 West 8th St. feels a special responsibility, a spokesman said, because one kidnaping victim was a member of the congregation and a second was on her way to a meeting at the church.

DATA

New estimates of Jewish population shifts in the United States say that the Jewish community in the Palm Springs area has nearly doubled in the last decade and that Orange County may now have 80,000 Jews--a figure revised upward by 20,000 from the previous year’s estimate. The findings, derived from several Jewish data sources, are in the 1987 American Jewish Year Book just published by the American Jewish Committee. The total U.S. Jewish population has remained about the same, 5.8 million, or 2.5% of the population.