George Bell (bishop)
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

George Kennedy Allen Bell (4 February 1883 – 3 October 1958) was an Anglican
theologian Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...
,
Dean of Canterbury The Dean of Canterbury is the head of the Chapter of the Cathedral of Christ Church, Canterbury, England. The current office of Dean originated after the English Reformation, although Deans had also existed before this time; its immediate precur ...
,
Bishop of Chichester The Bishop of Chichester is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Chichester in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese covers the counties of East and West Sussex. The see is based in the City of Chichester where the bishop's sea ...
, member of the
House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminste ...
and a pioneer of the
ecumenical movement Ecumenism (), also spelled oecumenism, is the concept and principle that Christians who belong to different Christian denominations should work together to develop closer relationships among their churches and promote Christian unity. The adjec ...
.


Early career

Bell was born in
Hayling Island Hayling Island is an island off the south coast of England, in the borough of Havant in the county of Hampshire, east of Portsmouth. History An Iron Age shrine in the north of Hayling Island was later developed into a Roman temple in the 1st c ...
,
Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English cities on its south coast, Southampton and Portsmouth, Hampshire ...
, as the eldest child of Sarah Georgina Megaw and her husband James Allen Bell (the vicar of the Island and later a canon at
Norwich Cathedral Norwich Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in Norwich, Norfolk, dedicated to the Holy and Undivided Trinity. It is the cathedral church for the Church of England Diocese of Norwich and is one of the Norwich 12 heritage sites. The cathedra ...
). His sister Margorie married Cecil Wood, Bishop of Melanesia (1912-19). He was elected as a Queen's Scholar at
Westminster School (God Gives the Increase) , established = Earliest records date from the 14th century, refounded in 1560 , type = Public school Independent day and boarding school , religion = Church of England , head_label = Hea ...
in 1896. From there he was elected to a scholarship at Christ Church, Oxford, where he gained a First in Classical Moderations in 1903 and a Second in Literae Humaniores ('Greats') in 1905. He won the Newdigate Prize for English verse in 1904 for his poem, 'Delphi'. After Oxford he attended
Wells Theological College Wells Theological College began operation in 1840 within the Cathedral Close of Wells Cathedral. It was one of several new colleges created in the nineteenth century to cater not just for non-graduates, but for graduates from the old universiti ...
(first being influenced by ecumenism at the latter) and was ordained deacon at
Ripon Cathedral The Cathedral Church of St Peter and St Wilfrid, commonly known as Ripon Cathedral, and until 1836 known as Ripon Minster, is a cathedral in Ripon, North Yorkshire, England. Founded as a monastery by monks of the Irish tradition in the 660s, i ...
in 1907. He went on to work as a curate for three years in the industrial slums of
Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by popula ...
. His role there was the Christian mission to industrial workers, a third of whom were Indians and Africans from the British Empire. During his time there he learned much from the Methodists, whose connection between personal creed and social engagement he saw as an example to the Church of England. In 1910 Bell returned to Christ Church, Oxford, as a student minister and as lecturer in Classics and English, 1910–14; he was a Student (Fellow), 1911–14. Here too he was socially engaged, as one of the founders of a
cooperative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-contro ...
for students and university members and sitting on the board of settlements and worker-development through the
Workers' Educational Association The Workers' Educational Association (WEA), founded in 1903, is the UK's largest voluntary sector provider of adult education and one of Britain's biggest charities. The WEA is a democratic and voluntary adult education movement. It delivers lea ...
(WEA). Bell's early career was shaped by his appointment in 1914 as chaplain to Archbishop Randall Davidson, one of the key figures in twentieth century church history. Bell subsequently wrote the standard biography of Davidson. Bell received a special commission for international and inter-denominational relations. In this office he ensured in 1915 that the Lutheran Indians be allowed to continue the work of the Leipzig – and the Goßner missions in Chota Nagpur in India, after the missions' German missionaries had been interned. Until the end of the First World War, he also worked for the
Order of Saint John The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem ( la, Ordo Fratrum Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani), commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), was a medieval and early modern Catholic military order. It was headq ...
, a supra-confessional group working to help those orphaned by the war and – together with the Swedish Lutheran archbishop
Nathan Söderblom Lars Olof Jonathan Söderblom (; 15 January 1866 – 12 July 1931) was a Swedish clergyman. He was the Church of Sweden Archbishop of Uppsala between 1914 and 1931, and recipient of the 1930 Nobel Peace Prize. He is commemorated in the Cale ...
, one of his closest lifelong friends – for the exchange of prisoners of war. In this work, he came to see internal Protestant divisions as more and more insignificant.


Inter-war years

After the war, Bell became an initiator and promoter of the still-young ecumenical movement. In 1919, at the first postwar meeting of the
World Council of Churches The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a worldwide Christian inter-church organization founded in 1948 to work for the cause of ecumenism. Its full members today include the Assyrian Church of the East, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, most ju ...
in the Netherlands, he successfully encouraged the establishment of a commission for religious and national minorities. At the world churches conference in Stockholm in 1925, he helped in the realisation of the "ecumenical advice for practical Christianity ( Life and Work)". From 1925 to 1929, Bell was
Dean of Canterbury The Dean of Canterbury is the head of the Chapter of the Cathedral of Christ Church, Canterbury, England. The current office of Dean originated after the English Reformation, although Deans had also existed before this time; its immediate precur ...
. During this time, he initiated the Canterbury Festival of the arts, with guest artists such as
John Masefield John Edward Masefield (; 1 June 1878 – 12 May 1967) was an English poet and writer, and Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Poet Laureate from 1930 until 1967. Among his best known works are the children's novels ''The Midnight Folk'' and ...
,
Gustav Holst Gustav Theodore Holst (born Gustavus Theodore von Holst; 21 September 1874 – 25 May 1934) was an English composer, arranger and teacher. Best known for his orchestral suite ''The Planets'', he composed many other works across a range ...
,
Dorothy L. Sayers Dorothy Leigh Sayers (; 13 June 1893 – 17 December 1957) was an English crime writer and poet. She was also a student of classical and modern languages. She is best known for her mysteries, a series of novels and short stories set between th ...
and T. S. Eliot (whose 1935 drama ''
Murder in the Cathedral ''Murder in the Cathedral'' is a verse drama by T. S. Eliot, first performed in 1935, that portrays the assassination of Archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral during the reign of Henry II in 1170. Eliot drew heavily on the writin ...
'' was commissioned by Bell for the festival). Later Bell also received
Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...
at Canterbury. In 1929 Bell was appointed
Bishop of Chichester The Bishop of Chichester is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Chichester in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese covers the counties of East and West Sussex. The see is based in the City of Chichester where the bishop's sea ...
. In this role he organised links between his diocese and of workers affected by the Great Depression. He also took part in the meetings of the
National Union of Public Employees The National Union of Public Employees (NUPE) was a British trade union which existed between 1908 and 1993. It represented public sector workers in local government, the Health Service, universities, and water authorities. History The union w ...
, where he was welcomed as "brother Bell".


Ally of the Confessing Church

From 1932 to 1934 he was the president of "Life and Work" at the ecumenical council in Geneva, at whose Berlin conference at the start of February 1933 he witnessed the Nazis' seizure of power at first hand. After 1933, Bell became the most important international ally of the
Confessing Church The Confessing Church (german: link=no, Bekennende Kirche, ) was a movement within German Protestantism during Nazi Germany that arose in opposition to government-sponsored efforts to unify all Protestant churches into a single pro-Nazi German ...
in Germany. In April 1933 he publicly expressed the international church's worries over the beginnings of the Nazis' antisemitic campaign in Germany, and in September that year carried a resolution protesting against the " Aryan paragraph" and its acceptance by parts of the
German Evangelical Church The German Evangelical Church (german: Deutsche Evangelische Kirche) was a successor to the German Evangelical Church Confederation from 1933 until 1945. The German Christians, an antisemitic and racist pressure group and ''Kirchenpartei'', ga ...
(Deutsche Evangelische Kirche, or DEK). In November 1933 he first met
Dietrich Bonhoeffer Dietrich Bonhoeffer (; 4 February 1906 – 9 April 1945) was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian and anti-Nazi dissident who was a key founding member of the Confessing Church. His writings on Christianity's role in the secular world have ...
, who was in London for two years as representative of the foreign churches – the two became close friends, and Bonhoeffer often informed Bell of what was going on in Germany. Bell then made this information (and thus what was really happening in Germany) known to the public of Europe and America, for example through letters to ''
The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...
''. On 1 June 1934 he signed the
Barmen Declaration __NOTOC__ The Barmen Declaration or the Theological Declaration of Barmen 1934 (German: ''Die Barmer Theologische Erklärung'') was a document adopted by Christians in Nazi Germany who opposed the German Christian movement. In the view of the de ...
, the foundational manifesto of the Confessing Church – it proclaimed that Christian belief and
National Socialism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Naz ...
were incompatible, and condemned pro-Nazi German Christianity as "false teaching", or
heresy Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religi ...
. Bell reported on 6 June to a gathering of the bishops of the Church of England and clarified the difference between confessing and rejecting, and the separation between a lawful and an illegitimate calling on Jesus Christ. This was the first reaction to the Declaration from the international church. From 1934 Bell functioned as a president of "Life and Work", when Bonhoeffer and Karl Koch as
praeses ''Praeses'' (Latin  ''praesides'') is a Latin word meaning "placed before" or "at the head". In antiquity, notably under the Roman Dominate, it was used to refer to Roman governors; it continues to see some use for various modern positions. ...
of the synod of the old-Prussian Ecclesiastical province of Westphalia were invited as representatives of the Confessing Church to the world ecumenical conference in
Fanø Fanø () is a Danish island in the North Sea off the coast of southwestern Denmark, and is the very northernmost of the Danish Wadden Sea Islands. Fanø municipality is the municipality ( Danish, '' kommune'') that covers the island and its sea ...
. As a selected youth secretary, Bonhoeffer was responsible for the related world youth conference. At one morning service, he addressed world Christianity as an "ecumenical council" and called on it to rise against the threatened war. On Bell's suggestion and against protests from the representatives of the pro-Nazi DEK, the world conference expressed solidarity with the Confessing Church and its struggle and again exposed the Nazis' policies, including the concentration camps. In 1936 Bell received the chair of the International Christian Committee for German Refugees, and in that role he especially supported Jewish Christians, who at that time were supported by neither Jewish nor Christian organizations. In order to help them to emigrate, he dispatched his sister-in-law Laura Livingstone to Berlin and Hamburg and occasionally let exiles live in his own home. In the same year, he printed a prayer in his diocesan newsletter for Jewish and "non-Aryan" Christians: Bell used his authority as a leader in the
Ecumenical Movement Ecumenism (), also spelled oecumenism, is the concept and principle that Christians who belong to different Christian denominations should work together to develop closer relationships among their churches and promote Christian unity. The adjec ...
and from 1938 as Lord Spiritual to influence public opinion in Britain and the Nazi authorities in Berlin, and back those persecuted by the Nazi regime. His public support is said to have contributed to Pastor
Martin Niemöller Friedrich Gustav Emil Martin Niemöller (; 14 January 18926 March 1984) was a German theologian and Lutheran pastor. He is best known for his opposition to the Nazi regime during the late 1930s and for his widely quoted 1946 poem " First they ca ...
's survival by making his imprisonment in Sachsenhausen in February 1938 (and later in Dachau) widely known in the British press and branded as an example of the Nazi regime's persecution of the church. Thus Hitler backed off from Niemöller's planned execution in 1938. In winter 1938/39 he helped 90 persons, mainly pastors' families (e.g.
Hans Ehrenberg Hans Philipp Ehrenberg (; 4 June 1883 – 21 March 1958) was a German Jewish philosopher and theologian. One of the co-founders of the Confessing Church, he was forced to emigrate to England because of his Jewish ancestry and his opposition to ...
from the Christuskirche at Bochum), to emigrate from Germany to Great Britain who were in danger from the regime and the 'official' church because they had Jewish ancestors or were opponents of the Nazi regime.


Second World War

During the war, Bell was involved in helping not only displaced persons and refugees who had fled the continent to England, but also interned Germans and British conscientious objectors. In 1940 he met with ecumenical friends in the Netherlands to unite the churches ready for a joint peace initiative after victory over Nazi Germany had been won. During the 1930s and 1940s, Bell encouraged engagement between the church and the arts. This included supporting the creation of murals by the German refugee and artist Hans Feibusch at St Elisabeth's Eastbourne and Bloomsbury Group members
Vanessa Bell Vanessa Bell (née Stephen; 30 May 1879 – 7 April 1961) was an English painter and interior designer, a member of the Bloomsbury Group and the sister of Virginia Woolf (née Stephen). Early life and education Vanessa Stephen was the eld ...
and
Duncan Grant Duncan James Corrowr Grant (21 January 1885 – 8 May 1978) was a British painter and designer of textiles, pottery, theatre sets and costumes. He was a member of the Bloomsbury Group. His father was Bartle Grant, a "poverty-stricken" major i ...
at Berwick, East Sussex.


Opponent of area bombing

During the Second World War, Bell repeatedly condemned the Allied practice of
area bombing In military aviation, area bombardment (or area bombing) is a type of aerial bombardment in which bombs are dropped over the general area of a target. The term "area bombing" came into prominence during World War II. Area bombing is a form of st ...
. As a member of the
House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminste ...
, he was a consistent parliamentary critic of area bombing along with Richard Stokes and Alfred Salter, Labour Party
Members of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...
in the
House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...
. Even as early as 1939, he stated that the church should not be allowed to become simply a spiritual help to the state, but instead should be an advocate of peaceful international relations and make a stand against expulsion, enslavement and the destruction of morality. It should not be allowed to abandon these principles, ever ready to criticise retaliatory attacks or the bombing of civil populations. He also urged the European churches to remain critical of their own countries' ways of waging war. In November 1939 he published an article stating that the Church in wartime should not hesitate In 1941 in a letter to ''
The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...
'', he called the bombing of unarmed women and children "barbarian" which would destroy the just cause for the war, thus openly criticising the
Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...
's advocacy of such a bombing strategy. On 14 February 1943 – two years ahead of the Dresden raids – he urged the House of Lords to resist the War Cabinet's decision for area bombing, stating that it called into question all the humane and democratic values for which Britain had gone to war. In 1944, during debate, he again demanded the House of Lords to stop British area bombing of German cities such as Hamburg and Berlin as a disproportionate and illegal "policy of annihilation" and a
crime against humanity Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...
, asking: He did not have the support of senior bishops. The Archbishop of York replied to him in the House of Lords: "it is a lesser evil to bomb the war-loving Germans than to sacrifice the lives of our fellow countrymen..., or to delay the delivery of many now held in slavery".


Supporter of the German resistance

As a close friend of the German pastor
Dietrich Bonhoeffer Dietrich Bonhoeffer (; 4 February 1906 – 9 April 1945) was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian and anti-Nazi dissident who was a key founding member of the Confessing Church. His writings on Christianity's role in the secular world have ...
Bell knew precise details of German plans to assassinate
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
. On 1 June 1942, Bell met Bonhoeffer in neutral Sweden, where the latter was acting as a secret courier for information on the German resistance. This information included the names of the participants from the armed forces in the planned assassination attempt on Hitler and coup against the Nazi regime. On his return, Bell passed this information on the German resistance movement on to Anthony Eden and tried to gain British government support for them. Bell also asked Eden, at the conspirators' request "to emphatically and publicly explain that the British government and its allies have no wish to enslave Germany, but only to remove Hitler, Himmler and their accessories" – in other words, to make a public declaration that the British would make a distinction between the Nazi regime and German people, so as the conspirators would be able to negotiate an armistice if they were successful. Yet after a month-long silence, Bell received a rough rebuttal, for the allies had concluded at the
Casablanca conference The Casablanca Conference (codenamed SYMBOL) or Anfa Conference was held at the Anfa Hotel in Casablanca, French Morocco, from January 14 to 24, 1943, to plan the Allied European strategy for the next phase of World War II. In attendance were ...
to wage war until the unconditional surrender of Germany and to initiate area bombing. Such moves made Bell unpopular in some quarters. Noël Coward's 1943 song " Don't Let's Be Beastly to the Germans", which expressed hostility to any distinction between the Germans and the Nazis, commented "We might send he Germansout some Bishops as a form of lease and lend". After the failure of the first attempt on Hitler's life and the arrest of some of the conspirators, Bell in vain tried to bring about a change in government attitudes to the German resistance. When the final failure came on 20 July 1944, Bell harshly criticised the British government as having made this failure a foregone conclusion, and reproached Eden for not sending help to the plotters in time despite having full knowledge of the plot.


Considered as Archbishop of Canterbury

In 1944 the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, died after only two years in the post. Bell was considered a leading possibility to succeed him, but it was Geoffrey Fisher,
Bishop of London A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...
, who was appointed. Bishops of the Church of England at the time were chosen, ultimately, by the
British prime minister The prime minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The prime minister advises the sovereign on the exercise of much of the royal prerogative, chairs the Cabinet and selects its ministers. As moder ...
and it is known that
Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...
strongly disapproved of Bell's speeches against bombing.Chandler and Hein, p. 45 It has been asserted that Bell would otherwise have been appointed, but this is debatable; there is evidence that Temple had thought Fisher a likely successor anyway. Bell's high posthumous reputation may have coloured later opinion. For example, Archbishop
Rowan Williams Rowan Douglas Williams, Baron Williams of Oystermouth, (born 14 June 1950) is a Welsh Anglican bishop, theologian and poet. He was the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, a position he held from December 2002 to December 2012. Previously the Bish ...
said in 2008 that he thought Bell would have made a better Archbishop of Canterbury than Fisher.


Post-war


War crimes trials

Bell was opposed to the Nazi regime, but subscribed to an understanding of National Socialism that saw the Nazi regime as a freakish aberration from the norms of Western civilization, such that the traditional elites could not have been in any way involved in Nazi crimes. Hence when the British government brought Field Marshal
Erich von Manstein Fritz Erich Georg Eduard von Manstein (born Fritz Erich Georg Eduard von Lewinski; 24 November 1887 – 9 June 1973) was a German Field Marshal of the ''Wehrmacht'' during the Second World War, who was subsequently convicted of war crimes and ...
to
trial In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribunal ...
for war crimes committed on the Eastern Front in 1949, Bell emerged as one of Manstein's leading champions, stating that it was self-evident that a German Army officer like Manstein could not possibly be a war criminal. For Bell, bringing to trial members of traditional elites in Germany like members of the officer corps and diplomatic corps was morally wrong as Bell simply could not accept that these men had been involved in Nazi crimes. Bell was part of an informal group headed by General Sir Maurice Hankley who strongly opposed war crimes trials of German and Japanese leaders, and campaigned very energetically for the end of war crimes trials and for freedom for those convicted of war crimes like Manstein. The British historian Tom Lawson wrote that Bell was principally concerned with the situation of the Confessing Church in Germany, not with the persecution of the German Jewish community in the 1930s which escalated into a campaign of genocide against all European Jews in the 1940s. Like his ally and friend Pastor Martin Niemöller, what Bell objected to was not the antisemitism of the Nazi regime ''per se'', but rather the attempt to apply the Aryan Paragraph to those German Jews who had converted to Christianity. Lawson argued that this understanding of Nazism as more of an anti-Christian movement than an anti-Jewish movement meant that Anglican clergymen like Bell had only a "superficial" understanding of
the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...
, which was not a major concern for him.


Visionary for a reconciled Europe

A supporter of Protestant ecumenism, Bell hoped after the war for a Europe united by common Christian values. Bell saw the Soviet Union as the principal enemy of Europe, which for him was an "Asian" nation that was not part of the "European family", calling for an Anglo-German alliance to be the cornerstone of a post-war Europe.


Critic of expulsions

Bell was also one of the first British bishops to protest against the inhumane treatment of approximately 14 million Silesian,
Pomerania Pomerania ( pl, Pomorze; german: Pommern; Kashubian: ''Pòmòrskô''; sv, Pommern) is a historical region on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea in Central Europe, split between Poland and Germany. The western part of Pomerania belongs to ...
n, East Prussian and Sudeten Germans expelled from their homes in Eastern Europe. Around 15 August 1945, he signed an open letter of protest in ''
The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world. It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''The ...
'', and signed another protest to a London daily newspaper on 12 September that year alongside
Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, ...
, the British publisher
Victor Gollancz Sir Victor Gollancz (; 9 April 1893 – 8 February 1967) was a British publisher and humanitarian. Gollancz was known as a supporter of left-wing causes. His loyalties shifted between liberalism and communism, but he defined himself as a Chris ...
and others.


Nuclear disarmament and the Cold War

In the 1950s Bell opposed the atomic arms race and supported many Christian initiatives of the time opposed to the Cold War. In the last years of his life, he became acquainted with Giovanni Montini in Milan through his ecumenical contacts, who in 1963 became
Pope Paul VI Pope Paul VI ( la, Paulus VI; it, Paolo VI; born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini, ; 26 September 18976 August 1978) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 21 June 1963 to his death in Augus ...
and brought the
Second Vatican Council The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly known as the , or , was the 21st ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church. The council met in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome for four periods (or sessions), each lasting between 8 and ...
to its conclusion.


Child abuse allegations

In 1995, 37 years after Bell's death, a complaint was made to the then Bishop of Chichester, Eric Kemp, alleging that Bell had
sexually abused Sexual abuse or sex abuse, also referred to as molestation, is abusive sexual behavior by one person upon another. It is often perpetrated using force or by taking advantage of another. Molestation often refers to an instance of sexual assau ...
a girl during the 1940s and 1950s. The complaint was not passed on to police until a second complaint was made to the office of
Justin Welby Justin Portal Welby (born 6 January 1956) is a British bishop who is the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury. He has served in that role since 2013. Welby was previously the vicar of Southam, Warwickshire, and then Bishop of Durham, serving for ...
, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in 2013, 18 years after the first complaint had been made and 55 years after Bell's death. This was a time of intense public concern over sexual abuse within the Church of England and especially in Chichester Diocese. In September 2015 the diocese paid compensation to the woman and Martin Warner, the Bishop of Chichester, issued a formal apology to her the following month. This led to a major controversy, as people who respected Bell's legacy found the claims to be incredible, and found the Church's apparent acceptance of them to be unjust. Due to the controversy, in February 2016 the woman spoke publicly for the first time under the pseudonym "Carol", in an interview with the ''
Brighton Argus ''The Argus'' is a local newspaper based in Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England, with editions serving the city of Brighton and Hove and the other parts of both East Sussex and West Sussex. The paper covers local news, politics and spor ...
'', saying that she was sexually abused from the age of five until her family moved away when she was nine. In June 2016 the Church of England announced that it would hold an independent review of the procedure used to investigate the church's handling of the allegations (not the truth of the allegations themselves) and in November it announced that
Lord Carlile Alexander Charles Carlile, Baron Carlile of Berriew, (born 12 February 1948) is a British barrister and crossbench member of the House of Lords. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Montgomeryshire from 1983 to 1997. Early life and career ...
QC would be the reviewer. Carlile submitted his report to the Church of England in mid-October and on 15 December 2017 the church published it. Retrieved 29 July 2018 Carlile found that "there was a rush to judgment: The church, feeling it should be both supportive of the complainant and transparent in its dealings, failed to engage in a process which would also give proper consideration to the rights of the bishop." The report also found that the available evidence did not suggest there would have been "a realistic prospect of conviction" in court, the standard that prosecutors in England and Wales use in deciding whether to pursue a case. The Church of England released a statement with the report, in which it apologized to Bell's relatives for the way it investigated child abuse claims made against him, acknowledged the mistakes highlighted by the report, and promised to implement all except one of its recommendations. Archbishop Welby rejected calls to state that the investigation had cleared Bell's name and said that the allegations were handled as a civil matter, not a criminal one. In late January 2018 the Church of England's national safeguarding team issued a statement saying it had passed 'fresh information' on to Sussex Police that it had recently received concerning Bishop Bell. In April 2018 Sussex Police stated that a proportionate investigation had been carried out to clarify the circumstances. As there were no safeguarding issues and Bell had been dead for sixty years the matter was now closed as far as the Police are concerned. In March 2018, the
Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) in England and Wales was an inquiry examining how the country's institutions handled their duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse. It was announced by the British Home Secretar ...
began examining the handling of allegations of sexual abuse in the diocese of Chichester, including this matter, which it said would unfold over two years. In January 2019 the Church's National Safeguarding Team announced that new allegations by a "range of people", following publication of the Carlile Report, had been reviewed by ecclesiastical lawyer Timothy Briden, who had concluded that they were unfounded. He had not investigated the original complaint. Archbishop Justin Welby apologised for mistakes made after the original allegation while also stating that the original allegation cannot be "ignored or swept under the carpet". In November 2021, Justin Welby retracted his previous claim that there was a "significant cloud" over Bell's reputation, and announced that a statue of him would be erected on the west front of Canterbury Cathedral.


Veneration

George Bell is honoured with a
commemoration Commemoration may refer to: *Commemoration (Anglicanism), a religious observance in Churches of the Anglican Communion *Commemoration (liturgy) In the Latin liturgical rites of the Catholic Church, a commemoration is the recital, within the Li ...
in 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 Britai ...
on
3 October Events Pre-1600 *2457 BC – Gaecheonjeol, Hwanung (환웅) purportedly descended from heaven. South Korea's National Foundation Day. *52 BC – Gallic Wars: Vercingetorix, leader of the Gauls, surrenders to the Romans under Julius Cae ...
.


Works


Primary works

*"A Brief Sketch of the Church of England", 1929 *"Life of Archbishop Randall Davidson." Biography, 1952 (3rd Edition) London OUP *"Christianity and World Order", 1940 *"The Background of the Hitler Plot", in: Contemporary Review 10, London 1945 *"The Church and Humanity", 1946 (contains: "The Church's Function in Wartime." November 1939) *"The Task of the Churches in Germany", 1947 *"Christian Unity: The Anglican Position", 1948 *"The Kingship of Christ: The Story of the World Council of Churches", 1954 *"Die Kirche und die Widerstandsbewegung (Politisch-historische Vorlesungsreihe der Universität Göttingen)", in: Evangelische Theologie (Zeitschrift) 7, 1957. Edited (together with J. O. Cobham): *"The Significance of the Barmen Declaration for the Oecumenical Church", London 1943.


Secondary works

*Franz Hildebrandt (Ed.), 'And other Pastors of thy Flock': a German tribute to the Bishop of Chichester, Cambridge, 1942 *Ronald C. D. Jasper: "George Bell, Bishop of Chichester." Oxford University Press, 1967. *Kenneth Slack: "George Bell". SCM Book Club 204, 1971 *Eberhard Bethge: "Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Eine Biographie." Christian Kaiser Verlag München, 1978, *Jaakko Rusama: "Unity and Compassion. Moral issues in the life and thought of George K.A. Bell." Helsinki 1986. . *Annegret Winkler-Nehls / Andreas Nehls: "They find themselves between the upper and the nether millstones". Bischof Bells Nachlass zum Problem nichtarischer Flüchtlinge, 1933–1939. Eine Dokumentation. Beiträge zur Diakoniewissenschaft 152, Heidelberg 1991. *Edwin Robertson: "Unshakeable Friend. George Bell and the German Churches". London: CCBI 1995. . *Andrew Chandler: "Brethren in Adversity. Bishop George Bell, The Church of England and the Crisis of German Protestants, 1933–1939". Woodbridge 1997. *Stephen A. Garrett: "Ethics and Airpower in World War II. The British Bombing of German Cities." New York 1997 *Paul Foster (Ed.): "Bell of Chichester: A Prophetic Bishop." Otter Memorial Paper No. 17, February 2004, *Jeremy Haselock: "George Kennedy Allen Bell, Bishop of Chichester and Pastoral Liturgist." Studia Liturgica Vol 35, 2005. *Tom Lawson T''he Church of England and the Holocaust: Christianity, Memory and Nazism'', Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2006 *Peter Raina: "George Bell: The greatest churchman – a portrait in letters." London: Churches Together in Britain and Ireland 2006. & . * "George Bell, Bishop of Chichester, on the Morality of War". ''Anglican and Episcopal History'' 58 (1989): 498–509. *Peter Webster, 'George Bell, John Masefield and "The Coming of Christ": context and significance', ''Humanitas. The Journal of the George Bell Institute'', 10;2 (2009). Available online i
SAS-Space
* *http://www.spartacus-educational.com/GERbellG.htm *http://www.joric.com/Conspiracy/Bell.htm
George Bell
in the Dictionary of National Biography (subscription required)


References


Sources

*


External links


Bell's papers are held at Lambeth Palace Library
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bell, George 1883 births 1958 deaths Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford Bishops of Chichester People from Hayling Island Deans of Canterbury English Anglicans English Anglican theologians British anti-war activists Anglican pacifists 20th-century Church of England bishops Burials at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford Anglican saints Grand Crosses with Star and Sash of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany 20th-century Anglican theologians 19th-century Anglican theologians