Charles Edward Blake Sr.

Charles Edward Blake Sr. (born August 5, 1940) is an American minister and retired pastor who served as the Presiding Bishop and leader of the Church of God in Christ, a 6 million-member Holiness Pentecostal denomination, that has now grown to become one of the largest predominantly African American Pentecostal denominations in the United States, from 2007 to 2021. On March 21, 2007, he became the Presiding Bishop of the Church of God in Christ, Inc., as a result of Presiding Bishop Gilbert E. Patterson's death. In a November 2007 special election, he was elected to complete the unexpired term of his predecessor as Presiding Bishop. In November 2008, Bishop Blake was re-elected to serve a four-year term as Presiding Bishop. In November 2012, Bishop Blake was re-elected again to serve a four-year term as the Presiding Bishop. He was reelected to a third term as Presiding Bishop on November 15, 2016. On October 23, 2020, Bishop Blake announced that he would not seek a re-election as Presiding Bishop nor as a member of the General Board and that he would retire from the Office of Presiding Bishop and from the General Board in 2021. He officially retired on March 19, 2021, and was succeeded by Bishop J. Drew Sheard, Sr. as Presiding Bishop on March 20, 2021.

Blake was the fifth Presiding Bishop (and seventh leader) of the historically African-American denomination from 2007 to 2021. From 1985 until 2009, he was the Jurisdictional Prelate of the First Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of Southern California, overseeing more than 250 churches that compose the jurisdiction. He was succeeded by Bishop Joe L. Ealy.

Bishop Blake is married to Mae Lawrence Blake, a native of Michigan, and they have three children together, Charles Blake II (Jr.), Lawrence Blake, and Kimberly Blake, and they have eight grandchildren.