Amid loud cheers for the man who had been deposed as their bishop just 50 days earlier, Bishop Robert Duncan was unanimously elected yesterday to lead the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh (Anglican).

"I guess this makes me the eighth bishop of Pittsburgh as well as being the seventh," he said, joking about making buttons that say, "He's baaack."

Turning more serious, he continued, "It's by our grace and our charity that we need to be known and to move on in mission. We don't have any time to sit and recover from all that we've been through. It's time to get on with what the Lord is asking us to do."

He was the only candidate, receiving all 100 lay votes and all but one disqualified ballot from 79 clergy.

"It's not often you get to vote for the same bishop twice," said an elated Rev. Ann Paton, associate rector of the Church of the Ascension, Oakland.

Bishop Duncan was first elected here in 1995. He became a champion of Episcopalians who believe their denomination no longer upheld biblical authority, salvation through Jesus or Christian sexual ethics. Because of his efforts to remove the diocese from the Episcopal Church and realign it with a theologically conservative Anglican province in another country, the Episcopal House of Bishops voted on Sept. 18 to remove him. On Oct. 4 the majority of the diocese voted to secede and realign with the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, based in Argentina.

Of an original 74 churches in the 20,000-member diocese, 20 have declared their intention to remain in the Episcopal Church, and several others may yet do so. There are now two bodies called The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, with the Anglican diocese estimated to be about twice as large as the Episcopal diocese. During the convention, news arrived that a third Episcopal diocese, in Quincy, Ill., had voted to secede into the Southern Cone.

Bishop Duncan has always said that the alliance with the Southern Cone would be temporary, until the Anglican Communion -- of which the Episcopal Church is the U.S. province -- approves a second province for theological conservatives in North America. Yesterday he expressed confidence that such a province "is very near."

He met Oct. 16 with Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, spiritual leader of the 77 million-member Anglican church, and said the meeting was a positive experience.

"I believe the province will come about and eventually be recognized by most of the provinces around the world," he said.

During a visit to Pittsburgh last week, Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told local Episcopalians that such a province was unlikely.

"Canterbury has never recognized an additional province of the Anglican Communion in the same geographic area where one already exists. The archbishop of Canterbury has been pretty clear that he's not going to do it," she said.

In October the diocese voted to allow like-minded parishes from outside southwest Pennsylvania to join it if they wished. Three such parishes -- from Darien, Conn., Raleigh, N.C., and Tonawanda, N.Y. -- were given voice but no vote at the convention so they can eventually decide if they want to join.