The Diocese of Calcutta,

Church of North India The Church of North India (CNI) is the dominant united Protestant church in northern India. It was established on 29 November 1970 by bringing together the Protestant churches working in northern India. It is a province of the worldwide Anglica ...

was established in 1813 as part of the Church of England. It is led by the Bishop of Calcutta and the first bishop was Thomas Middleton (1814–1822) and the second

Reginald Heber Reginald Heber (21 April 1783 – 3 April 1826) was an English Anglican bishop, man of letters and hymn-writer. After 16 years as a country parson, he served as Bishop of Calcutta until his death at the age of 42. The son of a rich lando ...

(1823–1826). Under the sixth bishop Daniel Wilson (1832–1858), the see was made Metropolitan (though not made an Archbishopric) when two more dioceses in India came into being (Madras, 1835, and Bombay, 1837). Calcutta was made a metropolitan see by

letters patent Letters patent ( la, litterae patentes) ( always in the plural) are a type of legal instrument in the form of a published written order issued by a monarch, president or other head of state, generally granting an office, right, monopoly, titl ...

on 10 October 1835 and in 1930 was included in the

Church of India, Burma and Ceylon The Church of India, Burma and Ceylon (CIBC) was the autonomous ecclesiastical province of the Anglican Communion in British India. The first Anglican diocese in India was established in 1813, the Diocese of Calcutta, which became the metropol ...

(from 1948 the

Church of India, Pakistan, Burma, and Ceylon The Church of India, Burma and Ceylon (CIBC) was the autonomous ecclesiastical province of the Anglican Communion in British India. The first Anglican diocese in India was established in 1813, the Diocese of Calcutta of the Church of North Indi ...

) until 1970. In 1970, the Church of the Province of Myanmar, Church of Ceylon and the Church of Pakistan were separated from the province. The Anglican dioceses in Northern India merged with the

United Church of Northern India (Congregationalist and Presbyterian) The Church of North India (CNI) is the dominant united Protestant church in northern India. It was established on 29 November 1970 by bringing together the Protestant churches working in northern India. It is a province of the worldwide Anglica ...

, the Methodist Church (British and Australian Conferences), the

Council of Baptist Churches in Northern India The Council of Baptist Churches in Northern India is a Baptist Christian denomination in India. It belongs to the Baptist World Alliance.

, the Church of the Brethren in India, and the

Disciples of Christ The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination in the United States and Canada. The denomination started with the Restoration Movement during the Second Great Awakening, first existing during the 19th ...

to form the Church of North India in the same year. In 1842 (after Madras and Bombay dioceses had been erected), her jurisdiction was described as "

Presidency of Bengal The Bengal Presidency, officially the Presidency of Fort William and later Bengal Province, was a subdivision of the British Empire in India. At the height of its territorial jurisdiction, it covered large parts of what is now South Asia and ...

". The diocese currently has jurisdiction over the corporation limits of Kolkata and the Districts of Hooghly &

Howrah Howrah (, , alternatively spelled as Haora) is a city in the Indian state of West Bengal. Howrah is located on the western bank of the Hooghly River opposite its twin city of Kolkata. Administratively it lies within Howrah district, and is th ...

in the state of West Bengal. The bishop's seat (

cathedra A ''cathedra'' is the raised throne of a bishop in the early Christian basilica. When used with this meaning, it may also be called the bishop's throne. With time, the related term ''cathedral'' became synonymous with the "seat", or principa ...

) is located in the city of Kolkata at

St. Paul's Cathedral St Paul's Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in London and is the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London. It is on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London and is a Gr ...

. The current bishop is Paritosh Canning.

List of Bishops of Calcutta

Assistant bishops

John Richardson was appointed assistant bishop for, and Commissary for the Metropolitan, in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in 1950, and remained an assistant bishop of Calcutta until the

Diocese of Andaman and Nicobar In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associate ...

was erected from Calcutta diocese in 1966. At that point, he became an assistant bishop of the new diocese, where he served until 1977. William Arthur Partridge (12 February 191218 December 1992; called Arthur) was assistant Bishop in Nandyal from 1953 until the erection of the

Diocese of Nandyal Nandyal Diocese is a diocese of Church of South India in Andhra Pradesh state of India. The diocese is one among the 22 dioceses of Church of South India in India. History The first missionary, missionaries who came to Nandyal were Arthur Inman ...

in 1963. He returned to the United Kingdom and served as an

Assistant Bishop of Hereford The Bishop of Hereford is the Ordinary (officer), ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Hereford in the Province of Canterbury. The episcopal see is centred in the Hereford, City of Hereford where the bishop's seat (''cathedra'') is in t ...

. M. D. (Manonmani David) Srinivasan was appointed an assistant bishop of the Anglican diocese in 1964 and consecrated a bishop in January 1985.

John Banerjee John Sharat Chandra Banerjee (22 June 1873 – ?) was an Anglican assistant bishop in Lahore. He was the second non-European bishop of the Church of India, Burma and Ceylon. Early life and career Banerjee was born in Allahabad. He was the son of a ...

was appointed assistant bishop of Lahore in 1931. He travelled to Australia in 1936 and was presented as Metropolitan of India.

References

CNI Diocese of Calcutta – Bishops
*Cross, F. L. (ed.; 1957) ''The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church''. Oxford U. P.; pp. 686–88: "India, Christianity in"

External links

– A History of the Church of England in India, SPCK, 1924
Diocese of Kolkata, CNI – Official WebsiteArchived
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bishop of Calcutta * Calcutta 1813 establishments in British India Church of North India Anglican dioceses in Asia Christianity in Kolkata Church of India, Burma and Ceylon

List of Bishops of Calcutta

Assistant bishops

See also

References

External links