Updated lunchtime Friday
The Church Times has Diocesan unification proposed for Yorkshire by Ed Thornton.
The Yorkshire Post has Anglicans consider merging Yorkshire dioceses by Fiona Evans.
The Telegraph has Church cuts bishops where Muslims outnumber Christians by seven to one by Tim Ross and also A tipping point for religion in Britain? by Jonathan Wynne-Jones.
The Guardian has Church of England may axe some bishops and dioceses to cut costs by Riazat Butt.
The Bradford Telegraph & Argus has Bradford Diocese may be scrapped.
The BBC has A merged Church of England diocese for West Yorkshire?
Anyone who doesn’t know where Yorkshire is may find this map helpful.
To moderately misquote the late Fred Trueman, ‘Anyone who doesn’t know where Yorkshire is’ should realise this is nowt to do wi’them!
Will they look at the west Midlands next? scope there.
Some measure of rationalisation is long overdue. For 12 years I was incumbent of a parish in Wakefield diocese. Two neighbouring parishes were in the next deanery, so we had little enough contact with them, but worse still, two other neighbouring parishes (one of which was in the same municipal ward as we were) were in Bradford diocese. Contact there was absolutely nil. Indeed, in 12 years I never met the incumbent of the one in the same ward, nor got an invitation to the induction of his successor, and only met the incumbent of the other because I knocked… Read more »
As always, historical perspective suggests wider possibilities. Perhaps it will be a century or so before some Christians rise up willing to take on converting the descendents of these new in-comers and surely trying to do so now would not be popular — but the pagan Angles and Saxons were converted — and later the Danes.
Never say the story is over for the Church in Britain.
Columba Gilliss
“The Telegraph has ‘Church cuts bishops where Muslims outnumber Christians by seven to one’ by Tim Ross”
Good thing no one’s getting hysterical. {sarcasm/Off}
Does Hampshire really need two dioceses?
Please excuse this presumptuous observation from a mere Canadian (who was once incumbent of a parish larger than the southern ecclesiastical province of Canterbury). IIRC, the original pattern in the United States was one diocese per state. Given the relative distances involved and the standard of transport at the time, it perhaps made sense to subdivide some of those states. But (especially with the reasonably good transportation infrastructure in England) does it make sense to have any of the counties (that’s the correct term, I hope?) divided into more than one diocese? Indeed, aren’t there actually two diocese within the… Read more »
Fr. Malcolm,
That’s certainly the pattern here in the state of Georgia. We have Atlanta Diocese and Georgia Diocese, but started as one diocese. The sheer size of the areas to be covered resulted in splitting. Atlanta-area has better transportation and urban development, but the Diocese of Georgia, with the See on the Atlantic Coast and stretching across to the Alabama border through swampland and rural/semi-rural communities is still a huge challenge to cover, but doable.
Hopefully, the Dioceses Commission will get their teeth into London/Southwark/Chelmsford before too long…
dear SB, There have been attempts to re-think boundaries in London/Southwark/ Chelmsford before…indeed ideas of reducing Areas in London. But they haven’t happened. Reform of this kind is very slow in the Church of England and inertia and vested interests are strong. I will be surprised if the present ideas for Yorkshire dont get substantially watered down. After all it needed the Government in the 1830’s to take the Church by the scruff of the neck to “bring it up to date”, not a task the government would be much interested in now. Mission imperatives are fine….but I suspect substantial… Read more »