The
BishopA bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...
of Rochester is the
OrdinaryIn those hierarchically organised churches of Western Christianity which have an ecclesiastical law system, an ordinary is an officer of the church who by reason of office has ordinary power to execute the church's laws. The term comes from the Latin word ordinarius...
of the
Church of EnglandThe Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England, the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the oldest among the communion's thirty-eight independent national and regional churches...
Diocese of RochesterThe Diocese of Rochester is ancient, having been established in 604; only the neighbouring Diocese of Canterbury is older in the Church of England...
in the
Province of CanterburyThe Province of Canterbury, also called the Southern Province, is one of two ecclesiastical provinces making up the Church of England. It consists of 30 dioceses, covering roughly the southern two-thirds of England, along with the Channel Islands, the Falkland Islands, a few parishes in Wales, and...
.
The diocese covers the west of the county of
KentKent , originally Cantia, is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the River Thames estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent...
. The
seeAn episcopal see is, in the original sense, the official seat of a bishop. This seat, which is also referred to as the bishop's cathedra, is placed in the bishop's principal church, which is therefore called the bishop's cathedral...
is in the city of Rochester where the seat is located at
The Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin MaryRochester Cathedral, or the Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary, is a Norman church in Rochester, Kent. The bishopric is second oldest in England: only Canterbury is older.-History:...
, which was founded as a cathedral in 604. For the late
17thThe 17th Century was that century which lasted from 1601 to 1700 in the Gregorian calendar.The 17th Century falls into the Early Modern period of Europe and was characterized by the Baroque cultural movement, the French Grand Siècle dominated by Louis XIV, and the beginning of modern science and...
and the
18th centuryThe 18th century lasted from 1701 to 1800 in the Gregorian calendar, in accordance with the Anno Domini/Common Era numbering system.However, Western historians sometimes specifically define the 18th century otherwise for the purposes of their work...
it was customary for the Bishop of Rochester to also be appointed
DeanA dean, in a church context, is a cleric holding certain positions of authority within a religious hierarchy. The title is used mainly in the Anglican Communion and the Catholic Church.-Anglican Communion:...
of
Westminster AbbeyThe Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, which is almost always referred to popularly and informally as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in Westminster, London, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster...
.
The Bishop's residence is Bishopscourt, Rochester, Kent.
The office was created in 604 at the founding of the diocese in the
Kingdom of KentThe Kingdom of Kent was a kingdom in what is now south east England. It was founded at an unknown date in the 5th century by Jutes, members of a Germanic people from continental Europe, some of whom settled in Britain after the withdrawal of the Romans...
under
King ÆthelbertÆthelberht was King of Kent from about 580 or 590 until his death. In his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, the monk Bede lists Aethelberht as the third king to hold imperium over other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms...
.
The
BishopA bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...
of Rochester is the
OrdinaryIn those hierarchically organised churches of Western Christianity which have an ecclesiastical law system, an ordinary is an officer of the church who by reason of office has ordinary power to execute the church's laws. The term comes from the Latin word ordinarius...
of the
Church of EnglandThe Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England, the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the oldest among the communion's thirty-eight independent national and regional churches...
Diocese of RochesterThe Diocese of Rochester is ancient, having been established in 604; only the neighbouring Diocese of Canterbury is older in the Church of England...
in the
Province of CanterburyThe Province of Canterbury, also called the Southern Province, is one of two ecclesiastical provinces making up the Church of England. It consists of 30 dioceses, covering roughly the southern two-thirds of England, along with the Channel Islands, the Falkland Islands, a few parishes in Wales, and...
.
The diocese covers the west of the county of
KentKent , originally Cantia, is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the River Thames estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent...
. The
seeAn episcopal see is, in the original sense, the official seat of a bishop. This seat, which is also referred to as the bishop's cathedra, is placed in the bishop's principal church, which is therefore called the bishop's cathedral...
is in the city of Rochester where the seat is located at
The Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin MaryRochester Cathedral, or the Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary, is a Norman church in Rochester, Kent. The bishopric is second oldest in England: only Canterbury is older.-History:...
, which was founded as a cathedral in 604. For the late
17thThe 17th Century was that century which lasted from 1601 to 1700 in the Gregorian calendar.The 17th Century falls into the Early Modern period of Europe and was characterized by the Baroque cultural movement, the French Grand Siècle dominated by Louis XIV, and the beginning of modern science and...
and the
18th centuryThe 18th century lasted from 1701 to 1800 in the Gregorian calendar, in accordance with the Anno Domini/Common Era numbering system.However, Western historians sometimes specifically define the 18th century otherwise for the purposes of their work...
it was customary for the Bishop of Rochester to also be appointed
DeanA dean, in a church context, is a cleric holding certain positions of authority within a religious hierarchy. The title is used mainly in the Anglican Communion and the Catholic Church.-Anglican Communion:...
of
Westminster AbbeyThe Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, which is almost always referred to popularly and informally as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in Westminster, London, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster...
.
The Bishop's residence is Bishopscourt, Rochester, Kent.
The office was created in 604 at the founding of the diocese in the
Kingdom of KentThe Kingdom of Kent was a kingdom in what is now south east England. It was founded at an unknown date in the 5th century by Jutes, members of a Germanic people from continental Europe, some of whom settled in Britain after the withdrawal of the Romans...
under
King ÆthelbertÆthelberht was King of Kent from about 580 or 590 until his death. In his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, the monk Bede lists Aethelberht as the third king to hold imperium over other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms...
. The current bishop is
Dr Michael James Nazir-AliMichael James Nazir-Ali is the Pakistani-born 106th Bishop of Rochester in the Church of England. On 28 March 2009 he announced his intention to resign.He holds dual Pakistani and British citizenship.-Background:...
, the 106th
Lord Bishop of Rochester, who signs
Michael Roffen. On 28 March, Dr Nazir-Ali announced that he would retire with effect from 1 September 2009, a decade before the obligatory retirement age for bishops.
History
The diocese of Rochester was historically the oldest and smallest of all the suffragan sees of Canterbury. Founded by St
AugustineAugustine of Canterbury was a Benedictine monk who became the first Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 598...
, who in 604 consecrated St
JustusJustus , was the fourth Archbishop of Canterbury, in England. A missionary sent to England to convert the Anglo-Saxons, he became the first Bishop of Rochester in 604. He was forced to flee to Gaul in 616 after the death of King Æthelberht of Kent, but was reinstated in his diocese the next year...
as its first bishop. (After two more Roman bishops, all subsequent bishops until 1066, beginning with
IthamarIthamar was the first bishop in England to be Saxon-born rather than consecrated from among Augustine's Roman missionaries...
, 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 MedwayThe River Medway, which is almost entirely in Kent, England, flows for from just inside the West Sussex border to the point where it enters the Thames Estuary....
, though the diocesan boundaries did not follow the river very closely. The restricted territory of the diocese meant that it needed only one
archdeaconA position of archdeacon is a senior position in Anglicanism, Syrian Malabar Nasrani, and in some other Christian denominations, above that of most clergy and below a bishop. In the High Middle Ages it was the most senior diocesan position below a bishop in the Roman Catholic Church...
to supervise all 97 parishes.
From the foundation of the see the Archbishop of Canterbury had enjoyed the privilege of nominating the bishop, but Archbishop Theobald transferred the right to the Benedictine monks of the cathedral, who exercised it for the first time in 1148.
External links