The Diocese of Hereford 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 Britai ...

diocese 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 associat ...

based in

Hereford Hereford () is a cathedral city, civil parish and the county town of Herefordshire, England. It lies on the River Wye, approximately east of the border with Wales, south-west of Worcester and north-west of Gloucester. With a populatio ...

, covering

Herefordshire Herefordshire () is a county in the West Midlands of England, governed by Herefordshire Council. It is bordered by Shropshire to the north, Worcestershire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south-east, and the Welsh counties of Monmouthshire ...

, southern

Shropshire Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to ...

and a few parishes within

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see H ...

in England, and a few parishes within

Powys Powys (; ) is a Local government in Wales#Principal areas, county and Preserved counties of Wales, preserved county in Wales. It is named after the Kingdom of Powys which was a Welsh succession of states, successor state, petty kingdom and princi ...

and Monmouthshire in

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

. The cathedral is Hereford Cathedral and the bishop is the Bishop of Hereford. The diocese is one of the oldest in England (created in 676 and based on the minor sub-kingdom of the Magonsæte) and is part of the Province of Canterbury.

Bishops

The diocesan Bishop of Hereford ( Richard Jackson) was, until 2020, assisted by the Bishop suffragan of Ludlow (which see was created in 1981) — it has been announced that the suffragan See is not to be filled. The provincial episcopal visitor (for parishes in this diocese – among twelve others in the western part of the Province of Canterbury – who reject the ministry of priests who are women, since 1994) is the Bishop suffragan of Ebbsfleet, who is licensed as an honorary assistant bishop of the diocese in order to facilitate his work there. Three retired bishops are licensed as assistant bishops in the diocese: Michael Westall ( Bishop of South West Tanganyika) lives in Kingstone, Herefordshire. David Thomson, ( Bishop of Huntingdon), lives in Hereford. Michael Bourke ( Bishop of Wolverhampton) also lives in the diocese.

Statistics

As reported in the Church of England's Statistics for Mission 2018, published in October 2019, the diocese had a population of 331,000, fewer than any other except Sodor and Man. With 402 churches, the population per church was 820, the lowest of any diocese and less than 60% of the 1420 in the next lowest,

St Edmundsbury and Ipswich The Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich is a Church of England diocese based in Ipswich, covering Suffolk (excluding Lowestoft). The cathedral is St Edmundsbury Cathedral, and the bishop is the Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich. It is part o ...

. Average weekly church attendance was 8,700, a new low, down from 9,300 in 2017. The total worshipping community was estimated at 13,300, up from 11,700 in 2014, and 44% of these were aged over 70 years.

Archdeaconries and deaneries

The following deanery mergers have taken place: * Kington and Weobley before 1972 * Ross and Archenfield before 1979 *including Cathedral

Churches

''Last updated 25 November 2020.''

Outside deanery structures

Deanery of Abbeydore

Deanery of Bromyard

Deanery of Hereford

Deanery of Kington and Weobley

Closed churches in the area

Deanery of Ledbury

Deanery of Leominste

Deanery of Ross and Archenfield

Deanery of Bridgnorth

Deanery of Clun Forest

Deanery of Condover

Deanery of Ludlow

Deanery of Pontesbury

Deanery of Telford Severn Gorge

References

Sources

*''Haydn's Book of Dignities (1894)'' Joseph Haydn/Horace Ockerby, reprinted 1969 * ''Whitaker's Almanack'' 1883 to 2004, Joseph Whitaker and Sons Ltd/A&C Black, London
Church of England Statistics 2002

External links

* {{authority control Diocese of Hereford, 676 establishments

Religion in Herefordshire 7th-century establishments in England