He was ordained a
Church of England priest in 1894 and for 40 years associated with
St. Paul's, Bloor Street, a pariah with a congregation with an evangelical leaning. He was the driving force behind the expansion of the small church to the current statue. In 1904 he was elected
Bishop of Nova Scotia but declined the post, and the post went instead to
Clarendon Worrell, who's brother John Austin Worrell was the chancellor of the Diocese of Toronto and later a leading opponent of Cody's candidacy for the Toronto bishopric. Cody was appointed a canon of St Alban's Cathedral in 1903 and
archdeacon of York in 1909.
1909 Toronto Episcopal election The election following the death of
Arthur Sweatman,
Bishop of Toronto and
Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, was a hotly contested affairs with Cody, then rector of
St. Paul's, and Bishop
George Thorneloe of Algoma as the primary contenders. The election was seen by some to have "crystallized the traditional rivalry between Wycliffe and Trinity" colleges, a manifestation of the then prominent divergence between the traditional "high church" and the evangelicals within the Anglican community. The election attracted a great deal more interest and partisan political flare in the press than Anglican elections ordinarily do, with
the Globe,
the Star, and
the World all providing extensive coverage that was favourable to Cody's candidacy. Conservative MPPs
William David McPherson of
Toronto West (and later a cabinet colleague) and
William Hoyle of Ontario North, Conservative MP
William Edward O'Brien, Liberal senator
James Kirkpatrick Kerr, judge
Samuel Hume Blake (brother of the former Liberal leader),
Toronto police chief H. J. Grasett along with a long list of prominent figures were reported as lay delegates in support of Cody in Star's front-page coverage of the first day of the synod, while prominent supporters of Thorneloe such as former Toronto mayor
Arthur Radcliffe Boswell was mentioned in passing without his office being noted. The electoral synod, held at
St. James's Cathedral and started on Wednesday February 17, 1909, took three days, seven ballots and a resolution conference. With 177 clerical votes (each held by an individual clergyman) and 128 lay votes (one for each parish, to be determined by plurality of its three delegates, with the vote recorded as lost if the three votes went to three different candidates) available, a candidate must receive majority support from both electoral pools to be elected. The competitiveness of the contest was evident from the first ballot, in which Cody received 60 clerical and 67 lay votes compared to Thorneloe's 109 clerical and 51 lay votes. The follow five ballots resulted in similar distribution, with majority of the lay delegates supporting Cody while majority of the clergy holding firm for Thorneloe. Following the fifth ballot, a telegram from Thorneloe was read out, which indicated he had "neither authorized nor approved what is being done". Despite Thorneloe's protest, his tally only dropped to 98 clerical and 51 lay votes, while Cody made no gains. The synod adjourned after the sixth ballot on the second day, and on the third day agreed to appoint a committee with eight representatives of each of the two leading candidates to discuss a compromise solution. A seventh ballot was taken after the committee's deliberation, electing archdeacon
James Sweeny, who received just a handful of votes in earlier ballots, with 153 clerical and 111 lay votes. Cody immediately pledged his loyalty in support of the new bishop, though he also noted the need for the church to Canadianize, a key point pressed by his supporters. (Both Thorneloe and Sweeny were born in England.) ==Minister of Education==