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The Diocese of Truro (established 1876) is a
Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Brit ...
diocese in the Province of Canterbury which covers
Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a Historic counties of England, historic county and Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people ...
, the Isles of Scilly and a small part of
Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devo ...
. The bishop's seat is at Truro Cathedral.


Geography and history

The diocese's area is that of the county of Cornwall, including the Isles of Scilly, as well as two
parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or ...
es in neighbouring Devon ( St Giles on the Heath and Virginstow). It was formed on 15 December 1876 from the Archdeaconry of Cornwall in the Diocese of Exeter. It is, therefore, one of the younger dioceses. The Christian faith, however, has been present in the region since at least the 4th century – more than 100 years before there was an Archbishop of Canterbury. Many of the communities in the diocese, as well as the parish churches, bear a Celtic saint's name, which is a reminder of the links with other Celtic lands, especially Ireland, Wales and Brittany. The Diocese of Truro is involved directly and indirectly through its Board of Social Responsibility and in the life of its parishes in tackling some of the economic problems that Cornwall is wrestling with and works closely with statutory and voluntary agencies. There are 313 church buildings.


Bishops

The current diocesan bishop is Philip Mounstephen, since the
confirmation In Christian denominations that practice infant baptism, confirmation is seen as the sealing of the covenant created in baptism. Those being confirmed are known as confirmands. For adults, it is an affirmation of belief. It involves laying on ...
on 20 November 2018 of his
election An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operat ...
.
(Accessed 24 November 2018)
There is a suffragan
Bishop of St Germans The Bishop of St Germans is an episcopal title which was used by Anglo Saxon Bishops of Cornwall and currently in use in the Church of England and in the Roman Catholic Church. The title is used by suffragan bishops of the Church of England, ...
(which see was created in 1905) whose current bishop is Hugh Nelson); at some periods there have also been assistant bishops, including John Wellington (formerly Bishop of Shantung) and Bill Lash, both retired from sees abroad. The provincial episcopal visitor for parishes in the diocese, among twelve other dioceses in the western part of the Province of Canterbury, which do not accept the ministry of women priests, is the suffragan
Bishop of Ebbsfleet The Bishop of Ebbsfleet is a suffragan bishop who fulfils the role of a provincial episcopal visitor in the Church of England. From its creation in 1994 to 2022, the Bishop of Ebbsfleet served traditionist Anglo-Catholic parishes that could not a ...
. He is licensed as an honorary assistant bishop of the diocese in order to facilitate his ministry. The most recent suffragan Bishop of Plymouth in the neighbouring Diocese of Exeter,
John Ford John Martin Feeney (February 1, 1894 – August 31, 1973), known professionally as John Ford, was an American film director and naval officer. He is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers of his generation. He ...
, was also licensed as an honorary assistant bishop in Truro diocese. A former Bishop of St Germans,
Roy Screech Clive Royden Screech (born 15 May 1953) is a former Bishop of St Germans in the Diocese of Truro. Screech was educated at Cotham Grammar School and King's College London. He was ordained in 1976 and was a curate at Hatcham followed by incumbe ...
, lives in
St Austell St Austell (; kw, Sans Austel) is a town in Cornwall, England, south of Bodmin and west of the border with Devon. St Austell is one of the largest towns in Cornwall; at the 2011 census it had a population of 19,958. History St Austell ...
.


Archdeaconries and deaneries


Rural deaneries

The names of the older deaneries (before 1875) are based on those of the ancient
Hundreds of Cornwall The hundreds of Cornwall ( kw, Keverangow Kernow) were administrative divisions or Shires ( hundreds) into which Cornwall, the present day administrative county of England, in the United Kingdom, was divided between and 1894, when they were ...
though the boundaries do not always correspond. East and West (Wivelshire) must have originally had a Cornish name but it is not recorded (Wivel may be from an Anglo-Saxon personal name 'Wifel'). The deaneries created in 1875 in the episcopate of
Frederick Temple Frederick Temple (30 November 1821 – 23 December 1902) was an English academic, teacher and churchman, who served as Bishop of Exeter (1869–1885), Bishop of London (1885–1896) and Archbishop of Canterbury (1896–1902). Early life T ...
were Bodmin, Stratton, St Austell and Carnmarth. These remained unchanged until Carnmarth was divided; later still in the 1980s some alterations of boundaries occurred. The need for smaller deaneries was caused by the economic growth of Victorian Cornwall, mainly in tin and copper mining, which increased the population and by a greater effort by the church to encourage church membership.


Coat of arms

The arms of the diocese include a saltire gules on which are a crossed sword and key: below this is a ''fleur de lys'' sable, all surrounded by a border sable charged with 15 bezants. The saltire is the cross of St Patrick, taken to be the emblem of the Celtic church; the sword and key are emblems of Ss Peter and Paul, the patrons of
Exeter Cathedral Exeter Cathedral, properly known as the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter in Exeter, is an Anglican cathedral, and the seat of the Bishop of Exeter, in the city of Exeter, Devon, in South West England. The present building was complete by about 14 ...
, and the ''fleur de lys'' represents St Mary, patron of the cathedral. The border is derived from the arms of the Duchy of Cornwall. They were designed by the College of Heralds in 1877 and are blazoned thus:
"Argent, on a saltire gules, a key, ward upward, in bend, surmounted by a sword, hilt upward, in bend sinister, both or. In base, a fleur de lys sable. The whole within a bordure sable, fifteen bezants. Ensigned with a mitre."


Future

In 2003 a campaign group was formed called '' Fry an Spyrys'' ("Free the Spirit" in Cornish) which is dedicated to disestablishing the
Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Brit ...
in Cornwall and to reconstituting the Diocese of Truro as an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. Its most vociferous member is the founder, the Revd Andy Phillips, who also writes under the pen-name "An Bucca". Its chairman is
Garry Tregidga Garry Harcourt Tregidga is a Cornish academic, director of the Institute of Cornish Studies at the University of Exeter's Penryn Campus in Cornwall, UK, and editor of the journal '' Cornish Studies''. He lives in Bugle, near St Austell, an ...
of the Institute of Cornish Studies. Phillips states there has been constant speculation that the diocese might be merged back into the Diocese of Exeter for budgetary reasons. The possibility of a merger was aired unofficially in March 2003, during debate surrounding the formulation of the Dioceses, Pastoral and Mission Measure, which would allow diocesan commissions to make proposals for the reorganisation of dioceses, including their dissolution. However, such a merger has yet to be proposed by any official body within the Church of England. When the possibility was raised by '' Fry an Spyrys'' in 2004 it was denied by a Church of England spokesman and also by representatives of the Truro and Exeter dioceses Since then the Diocese of Truro has shown some financial and administrative resilience. Diocesan reorganisation and the People of God campaign rallied human resources and led (by 2007) to a tight but stable financial situation. More recently
Lord Lloyd of Berwick Anthony John Leslie Lloyd, Baron Lloyd of Berwick, (called Tony; born 9 May 1929) is a retired British judge, and a former member of the House of Lords. Early life and education Lloyd was born on 9 May 1929, the son of Edward John Boydell Ll ...
, who chairs Parliament's Ecclesiastical Committee, reported to the House of Lords that there are no plans to abolish the Diocese of Truro and to merge it with the Diocese of Exeter.


Jeremy Dowling review

A 2018 case review commissioned by the diocese reported that four bishops, Maurice Key, Peter Mumford, Michael Ball and Richard Llewellin, had failed to respond to disclosures of abuse by a leading diocesan figure. The diocese had failed to investigate the accusations against Jeremy Dowling, a lay preacher and synod member, who rose to influential positions including communications officer to the bishop. Dowling was jailed in 2015 for seven years, and again in 2016 for a further eight years, for a series of indecent assaults on boys while teaching at a Cornish school during the 1960s and 70s. Kim Stevenson, a criminal justice expert, said the report made "sadly familiar reading" and she contrasted the situation in Britain with that in Australia where those who concealed or did not act on evidence of a sexual offence faced prosecution.


List of churches in the diocese

Grade I: buildings of exceptional interest. Grade II*: particularly important buildings of more than special interest. Grade II: buildings that are of special interest, warranting every effort to preserve them. ''Last fully updated 26 September 2018.''


Deanery of Stratton


Deanery of Trigg Major


Deanery of Trigg Minor & Bodmin


Deanery of East Wivelshire


Deanery of West Wivelshire


Deanery of Carnmarth North


Deanery of Carnmarth South


Deanery of Kerrier


Deanery of Penwith

1also licensed as curates in each other's parishes


Deanery of Powder


Deanery of Pydar


Deanery of St Austell


See also

*
Truro Cathedral School Truro Cathedral School was a Church of England school for boys in Truro, Cornwall. An ancient school refounded in 1549 as the Truro Grammar School, after the establishment of Truro Cathedral in the last quarter of the 19th century it was respons ...


References


Further reading

*Donaldson, Aug. B. (1902) ''The Bishopric of Truro: the first twenty-five years, 1877–1902''. London: Rivingtons
online version)
;Books by Charles Henderson *''The Cornish Church Guide'' Truro: Blackford, 1925 (only in part by Henderson) **Contents:- Part I: Historical. Celtic kalendar; History of the ancient bishopric in Cornwall(*); Additional notes on the ancient bishopric; List of bishops, from AD 931 to the present time; The restoration of the Cornish bishopric(*); Parochial history: notes on all the parishes; Particulars of the formation of new ecclesiastical parishes; The architecture of the Cornish parish church (*); Cornish church plate(*); The Celtic crosses of Cornwall; The holy wells of Cornwall(*). Part II: Administrative(*). Sections marked (*) are not by Henderson. *''The Cornish Church Guide and Parochial History of Cornwall''. Truro: D. Bradford Barton, 1964 (a reissue of "Parochial History of Cornwall", the author's principal contribution to ''The Cornish Church Guide'' published in 1925) *''The Ecclesiastical History of Western Cornwall''. 2 vols. Truro: Royal Institution of Cornwall; D. Bradford Barton, 1962


External links


Diocesan websiteChurch of England Statistics 2002
{{Authority control Christianity in Cornwall Christianity in Devon Dioceses established in the 19th century Truro Truro