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 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 ...

. It is led by the

Bishop 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 ...

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, commer ...

and the first bishop was

Thomas Middleton Thomas Middleton (baptised 18 April 1580 – July 1627; also spelt ''Midleton'') was an English Jacobean playwright and poet. He, with John Fletcher and Ben Jonson, was among the most successful and prolific of playwrights at work in the Jac ...

(1814–1822) and the second Reginald Heber (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 Metropolitan may refer to: * Metropolitan area, a region consisting of a densely populated urban core and its less-populated surrounding territories * Metropolitan borough, a form of local government district in England * Metropolitan county, a t ...

by letters patent 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) until 1970. In 1970, the Church of the Province of Myanmar,

Church of Ceylon The Church of Ceylon ( si, ලංකා සභාව) is the Anglican Church in Sri Lanka. It is an extra-provincial jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who serves as its Metropolitan. It was established in 1845 with the appointment ...

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 Methodist Church (British and Australian Conferences), the Council of Baptist Churches in Northern India, the Church of the Brethren in India, and the Disciples of Christ 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 Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

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 ...

in the state of

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fou ...

. The bishop's seat ( cathedra) is located in the city of

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 Gra ...

. 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 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 in 1963. He returned to the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

and served as an Assistant Bishop of Hereford. 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 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 *

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