Bishop of Coventry

"The Bishop's House", Coventry.

The Bishop of Coventry is the Ordinary of the England Diocese of Coventry in the Province of Canterbury. In the Middle Ages, the Bishop of Coventry was a title used by the bishops known today as the Bishop of Lichfield.

The present diocese covers most of the County of Warwickshire. The see is in the City of Coventry where the seat is located at the Cathedral Church of Saint Michael. The Bishop's residence is The Bishop's House, Coventry.

History

From 1102 to 1238, the former Benedictine Priory and Cathedral of St Mary in the city was the seat of the early Bishops of Coventry (previously known as Bishops of Chester or of Lichfield). It was, afterwards, one of the two seats of the Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield until the Reformation of the 1530s when Coventry Cathedral was demolished and the bishop's seat moved to Lichfield, though the title remained as Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry until 1837, when Coventry was united with the Diocese of Worcester.^[1]

Bishops of the modern Diocese

The diocese was revived in 1918 under King George V when the parish church of Saint Michael was elevated to cathedral status. The cathedral suffered under fire-bombing by the Luftwaffe on the night of 14 November 1940 and remains today as a dignified ruin adjacent to the new cathedral building consecrated on 25 May 1962. The 8th Bishop of Coventry was Colin Bennetts, who retired on 31 January 2008.^[2]

Christopher Cocksworth was ordained and consecrated as the 9th Bishop of Coventry on 3 July 2008 at Southwark Cathedral.^[3] He was enthroned and received into the diocese during a service at Coventry Cathedral on 1 November 2008.^[4][5] Cocksworth was previously Principal of Ridley Hall, part of the Cambridge Federation of Theological Colleges.

Bishops of Coventry
From	Until	Incumbent	Notes
1918	1922	Huyshe Yeatman-Biggs	Translated from Worcester.
1922	1931	Charles Carre	Translated to Hereford.
1931	1943	Mervyn Haigh	Translated to Winchester.
1943	1952	Neville Gorton
1952	1976	Cuthbert Bardsley	Translated from Croydon.
1976	1985	John Gibbs	Translated from Bradwell.
1985	1997	Simon Barrington-Ward
1998	2008	Colin Bennetts	Translated from Buckingham.
2008	present	Christopher Cocksworth
Source(s): [6][7]

References

1. Fryde et al. 1986, Handbook of British Chronology, pp. 253–255.
2. "New Bishop of Coventry". Coventry Diocese. 3 March 2008. Retrieved 2008-03-14.
3. "Start the Week—Consecration of the new Bishop of Coventry". Coventry Cathedral newsletter. Coventry Diocese. 27 May 2008. Retrieved 2008-07-06.
4. "The New Bishop Of Coventry". Diocese of Coventry. Archived from the original on 2008-06-11. Retrieved 2008-11-18.
5. "Welcome to the new Bishop of Coventry". Coventry Telegraph. 2008-11-03. Retrieved 2008-11-18.
6. Fryde et al. 1986, Handbook of British Chronology, p. 241.
7. "Historical successions: Coventry". Crockford's Clerical Directory. Retrieved 6 January 2012.

Bibliography

• Crockford's Clerical Directory (100th ed.). London: Church House Publishing. 2007. ISBN 978-0-7151-1030-0.
• Fryde, E. B.; Greenway, D. E.; Porter, S.; Roy, I., eds. (1986). Handbook of British Chronology (3rd, reprinted 2003 ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-56350-X.

External links

• Crockford's Clerical Directory: Historical successions