Bishop Henry Belin

The Right Reverend Dr. Henry Allen Belin III is the 146th Elected and Consecrated Bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

As a son of the AME Church, Bishop Belin’s journey testifies to AME history, richness, and vibrancy. Bishop Belin cares for God’s people and has spent his life in service to the work of God in the world, especially to the work of the Gospel through the African Methodist Episcopal Church. As an alumnus of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and an Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. member, he attended the Vanderbilt School of Engineering and the Vanderbilt Divinity School.

Bishop Belin has served congregations and communities throughout the connectional AME Church. After completing his studies, he served as a missionary in Ile-Ife, Osun State in Nigeria, West Africa. In addition to his mission work at Ile-Ife, Bishop Belin was a teacher/pastor at Christ’s Love AME Church, where he led the construction of the first AME church ever erected in Nigeria. After returning to America, Bishop Belin became pastor of Allen AME Church in Providence, Rhode Island, where he led the congregation in improving and revitalizing the surrounding area in an economic and community development project for housing. While serving in Providence, he became distinguished as the sole minority representative of the Rhode Island State Ethics Commission.

On June 15, 1997, Bishop Belin brought his deep concern and interest in youth and senior ministries to the People’s Institutional AME Church in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, New York, where he led the congregation in a spiritual revival. He also led the congregation in renovating the entire church, parsonage, and community building, which now houses the Bridge Street- People’s Institutional Technology Learning Center. He received numerous community awards and served as a police clergy liaison for the New York City Police Department, 81st precinct. In 1999, he completed the Summer Leadership Institute at the Harvard Divinity School for community development. Bishop Belin was appointed to First AME Church Bethel in Harlem, NY, on May 27, 2001, where he proudly serves as Pastor. During his tenure at Bethel, Rev. Dr. Belin has led the church and community by hosting many Annual Conferences, expanding the church properties, strengthening membership and spirituality, and renovating the sanctuary. In 2014, Bishop Belin was one of the inductees into the highly revered Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Board of Preachers at Morehouse College. And in 2018, he earned a Doctor of Ministry degree from Payne Theological Seminary.

In August 2024, Rev. Belin was Elected and Consecrated from the pastorate of First Bethel to be the 146th Bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church at the General Conference in Columbus, Ohio. Along with his family, Bishop Belin was assigned as the Presiding Prelate of the 15th Episcopal District, which includes leadership over churches in the countries of Namibia, Angola, and South Africa.

Bishop Belin’s service is not limited to the Connectional AME Church, but for decades his ministry has extended to the wider Metropolitan New York City community. His service to the community includes his tenure as the longest-serving Chair of the Board of the New York Food Bank; his service as the 2nd Vice President of the New York Branch of the NAACP; his leadership as the Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Bethel Manor Housing Fund Development Corporation; and his service as a Board Member for the Business Resource Investment Service Center (BRISC) and the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone.

Bishop Belin is happily married to the former Rita Denise Sinkfield, Esq., a corporate attorney in New York City. Together, they parent three wonderful young men: Henry IV, a Duke University scholar and quarterback; and the twins: Richard, a first-year Syracuse student and quarterback, and Blake, a Georgia Tech first-year student and linebacker. The family, along with their German Shepherd, King, live, love, and serve in Harlem, New York. Bishop Belin is the son of Bishop Henry Allen Belin II and Mother Lucinda Crawford Belin, and the brother of the Rev. Dr. Roderick D. Belin, President/Publisher of the AME Publishing House, and the Rev. Dr. Toni Belin-Ingram, Presiding Elder of the Augusta-North District of Georgia.