The Bishop of Rochester is the ordinary 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 Britain ...

Diocese of Rochester The Diocese of Rochester is a Church of England diocese in the English county of Kent and the Province of Canterbury. The cathedral church of the diocese is Rochester Cathedral in the former city of Rochester. The bishop's Latin episcopal signa ...

in the

Province of Canterbury The Province of Canterbury, or less formally the Southern Province, is one of two ecclesiastical provinces which constitute the Church of England. The other is the Province of York (which consists of 12 dioceses). Overview The Province consist ...

. The town of

Rochester Rochester may refer to: Places Australia * Rochester, Victoria Canada * Rochester, Alberta United Kingdom *Rochester, Kent ** City of Rochester-upon-Medway (1982–1998), district council area ** History of Rochester, Kent ** HM Prison ...

has the bishop's seat, at the Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary, which was founded as a cathedral in 604. During the late 17th and 18th centuries, it was customary for the Bishop of Rochester to also be appointed

Dean of Westminster The Dean of Westminster is the head of the chapter at Westminster Abbey. Due to the Abbey's status as a Royal Peculiar, the dean answers directly to the British monarch (not to the Bishop of London as ordinary, nor to the Archbishop of Canterbu ...

: the practice ended in 1802. The diocese covers two London boroughs and

West Kent Kent is a traditional county in South East England with long-established human occupation. Prehistoric Kent Kent has been occupied since the Lower Palaeolithic as finds from the quarries at Fordwich and Swanscombe attest. The Swanscombe sku ...

, which includes

Medway Medway is a unitary authority district and conurbation in Kent, South East England. It had a population of 278,016 in 2019. The unitary authority was formed in 1998 when Rochester-upon-Medway amalgamated with the Borough of Gillingham to for ...

and

Maidstone Maidstone is the largest Town status in the United Kingdom, town in Kent, England, of which it is the county town. Maidstone is historically important and lies 32 miles (51 km) east-south-east of London. The River Medway runs through the c ...

. The bishop's residence is Bishopscourt in Rochester. His

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

episcopal signature is: "(firstname) Roffen", ''Roffensis'' being the genitive case of the Latin name of the see. The office was created in 604 at the founding of the diocese in the

Kingdom of Kent la, Regnum Cantuariorum , conventional_long_name = Kingdom of the Kentish , common_name = Kent , era = Heptarchy , status = vassal , status_text = , government_type = Monarchy ...

under King Æthelberht. Jonathan Gibbs has served as Bishop of Rochester 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 ...

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 opera ...

, on 24 May 2022.

History

The Diocese of Rochester was historically the oldest and smallest of all the

suffragan A suffragan bishop is a type of bishop in some Christian denominations. In the Anglican Communion, a suffragan bishop is a bishop who is subordinate to a metropolitan bishop or diocesan bishop (bishop ordinary) and so is not normally jurisdictiona ...

sees of Canterbury. It was founded by

St Augustine Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Afr ...

, who in 604 consecrated St

Justus Justus (died on 10 November between 627 and 631) was the fourth Archbishop of Canterbury. He was sent from Italy to England by Pope Gregory the Great, on a mission to Christianize the Anglo-Saxons from their native paganism, probably arrivin ...

as its first bishop. (After two more Roman bishops, all subsequent bishops until 1066, beginning with

Ithamar In the Torah, Ithamar () was the fourth (and the youngest) son of Aaron the High Priest."Ithamar", '' Encyclopaedia Biblica'' Following the construction of the Tabernacle, he was responsible for recording an inventory to ensure that the constructed ...

, were drawn from the Christianised inhabitants of Kent.) The diocesan territory consisted roughly of the western part of Kent, separated from the rest of the county by the

River Medway The River Medway is a river in South East England. It rises in the High Weald AONB, High Weald, East Sussex and flows through Tonbridge, Maidstone and the Medway conurbation in Kent, before emptying into the Thames Estuary near Sheerness, a to ...

, though the diocesan boundaries did not follow the river very closely. The restricted territory of the diocese meant that it needed only one

archdeacon An archdeacon is a senior clergy position in the Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church, Anglican Communion, St Thomas Christians, Eastern Orthodox churches and some other Christian denominations, above that o ...

to supervise all 97 parishes. From the foundation of the see, the

Archbishop of Canterbury The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Justi ...

had enjoyed the privilege of nominating the bishop, but Archbishop

Theobald Theobald is a Germanic dithematic name, composed from the elements '' theod-'' "people" and ''bald'' "bold". The name arrived in England with the Normans. The name occurs in many spelling variations, including Theudebald, Diepold, Theobalt, Tyb ...

transferred the right to the

Benedictine monk The Benedictines, officially the Order of Saint Benedict ( la, Ordo Sancti Benedicti, abbreviated as OSB), are a Christian monasticism, monastic Religious order (Catholic), religious order of the Catholic Church following the Rule of Saint Benedic ...

s of the cathedral, who exercised it for the first time in 1148.

List of bishops

Pre-Conquest

Conquest to Reformation

During the Reformation

Post-Reformation

Assistant bishops

Among those called Assistant Bishop of Rochester, or

coadjutor bishop A coadjutor bishop (or bishop coadjutor) is a bishop in the Catholic, Anglican, and (historically) Eastern Orthodox churches whose main role is to assist the diocesan bishop in the administration of the diocese. The coadjutor (literally, "co ...

, were: *1889–1891 (res.):

Alfred Barry Alfred Barry (15 January 18261 April 1910) was the third Bishop of Sydney serving 1884–1889. Over the course of his career, Barry served as headmaster of independent schools, Principal of King's College London university and founded Angl ...

, a Canon of Windsor and former

Anglican Bishop of Sydney The Archbishop of Sydney is the diocesan bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Sydney, Australia and ''ex officio'' metropolitan bishop of the ecclesiastical Province of New South Wales. From 1814 to 1836 the colony of New South Wales was part of ...

*19281939 (ret.): Lanchester King, Canon Residentiary of

Rochester Cathedral Rochester Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary, is an English church of Norman architecture in Rochester, Medway, Rochester, Kent. The church is the cathedral of the Diocese of Rochester in the Church o ...

and former Bishop of Madagascar *19411947 (res.) & 19501967 (d.): John Mann, Secretary of the

CMS CMS may refer to: Computing * Call management system * CMS-2 (programming language), used by the United States Navy * Code Morphing Software, a technology used by Transmeta * Collection management system for a museum collection * Color manag ...

and former Bishop in Kyushu (

Nippon Sei Ko Kai The ''Nippon Sei Ko Kai'' ( ja, 日本聖公会, translit=Nippon Seikōkai, lit=Japanese Holy Catholic Church), abbreviated as NSKK, sometimes referred to in English as the Anglican Episcopal Church in Japan, is the national Christian church rep ...

). John Charles Mann (6 February 188028 April 1967) was made deacon on Trinity Sunday 1903 (7 June), by Randall Davidson,

, at

Canterbury Cathedral Canterbury Cathedral in Canterbury, Kent, is one of the oldest and most famous Christian structures in England. It forms part of a World Heritage Site. It is the cathedral of the Archbishop of Canterbury, currently Justin Welby, leader of the ...

. *19651978 (ret.): Keith Russell, Vicar of

Tunbridge Wells Royal Tunbridge Wells is a town in Kent, England, southeast of central London. It lies close to the border with East Sussex on the northern edge of the Weald, High Weald, whose sandstone geology is exemplified by the rock formation High Roc ...

(until 1973), Rector of Hever with

Markbeech Markbeech (sometimes styled Mark Beech)'A Vision of Britain Through Time: History oMark Beech, Kent'/ref> is a village in the civil parish of Hever in the Sevenoaks district of Kent, England. The village is located on the northern ridges of the ...

thereafter, and former Bishop of Northern Uganda *19941997 (res.): David Evans, Gen. Sec. of SAMS and former

Bishop in Peru The Anglican Church of South America ( es, Iglesia Anglicana de Sudamérica) is the ecclesiastical province of the Anglican Communion that covers six dioceses in the countries of Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay. Formed in 1981 ...

Notes

References

* * * *

External links

Diocese of Rochester websiteRochester Cathedral website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bishop of Rochester Diocese of Rochester Christianity in Kent History of Kent

Bishop of Rochester