The 'Bishop of Lincoln' heads the (
Anglican)
Diocese of Lincoln in the
Province of Canterbury. The bishops were in communion with the See of Rome until the
English Reformation of the
1530s.
The present diocese covers the county of
Lincolnshire. The Bishop's seat, or
cathedra, is located in the
Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the city of Lincoln. This was originally a
minster church founded around
653 and re-founded as a
cathedral in
1072.
The current bishop of Lincoln is the Right Reverend
Dr John Saxbee, the 71st (34th Anglican) Bishop of Lincoln, who signs ''John Lincoln''. His official residence is Bishop's House in Lincoln.
History
Identifying the origin of the diocese has posed some difficulty. The original diocese of
Lindsey (Lindine) was founded in
628 by the Roman missionary, Saint
Paulinus of York, almost certainly with its seat at the church of
St Paul-in-the-Bail in Lincoln. This did not outlive Paulinus's flight south in
633.
A subsequent diocese was considered the foundation of
Saint Theodore,
Archbishop of Canterbury, out of the
diocese of Lindisfarne. The seat of this supposed 'Bishop of Lindsey' at ''Sidnacester'' (Syddensis) has been placed, by various commentators, at
Caistor,
Louth,
Horncastle and, most often, at
Stow, all in present-day Lincolnshire. More recent research has concluded, however, that the seat was, in fact, the original foundation of 628 in Lincoln itself.
Due to the threat of
Viking invasion, the bishop's seat was moved to the
cathedral at
Dorchester-on-Thames in present-day
Oxfordshire in
971. Each subsequent bishop was called '
Bishop of Dorchester' until the seat returned to Lincoln and the diocese renamed in
1072.
Sources
★ http://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/chartwww/Bishops/epsuccession.html
★ http://www.katolsk.no/utenriks/index_en.htm
★ http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org
★ '''Cathedrals and Abbeys of England & Wales' Richard Morris, 1979, J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd''
★ '''Discovering Cathedrals' David Pepin, 2004, Shire Publications Ltd''
★ '''The Observer's Book of Cathedrals' Anthony S.B.New, 1972, Frederick Warne & Co Ltd''
★ '''Haydn's Book of Dignities (1894)' Joseph Haydn/Horace Ockerby, reprinted 1969''
★ '''Whitaker's Almanack 1883' to '2004' Joseph Whittaker & Sons/A&C Black, London''
★ '''Handbook of British Chronology' (2nd ed, 1961), Royal Historical Society''