Bishop of Rangoon

Bishop of Rangoon
Bishopric
anglican
Incumbent: Now a province
Province	Calcutta
Diocese	Rangoon
Cathedral	Rangoon Cathedral
First incumbent	Jonathan Holt Titcomb
Formation	9th century

The Lord Bishop of Rangoon was the Anglican bishop responsible for the diocese of Rangoon in the province of Calcutta from 1877 to 1970. Beforehand British Burma, then part of the Indian Empire, had come under the guidance of the Bishop of Calcutta, Metropolitan of India. In 1966 the last non-Burmese bishop was evicted by the Burmese authorities and in 1970 the Diocese of Rangoon became the Church of the Province of Burma, and the bishop was elevated to Archbishop in that church.

He was officially styled The Right Reverend Father in God, (Name), by Divine Providence Lord Bishop of Rangoon, but this full title was rarely used, the majority of the time the bishop being addressed either Bishop or Lord Bishop of Rangoon. In signing his name, the bishop's surname would be replaced by the name of his diocese. Therefore, J.O.E. Bloggs would become J.O.E. Rangoon in official correspondence.

In 1884 the pay of the Bishop was the not insubstantial salary of £960 per annum. The official residence of the Bishop was throughout the existence of the diocese Bishop's Court in Rangoon.

It was decided that the area of Southern Burma, then part of the British Indian Empire required a more substantial ecclesiastical presence than the Bishop of Calcutta could provide. For decades the American baptist missionaries and members of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts had been making inroads among the Burmese and Karenni peoples, and therefore in 1877 the diocese of Rangoon, subject to the diocese of Calcutta was established by Letters Patent. Jonathan Holt Titcomb, a parish priest in the diocese of Winchester which had contributed a large sum of money to setting up the diocese, was elected the first Bishop of Rangoon and so appointed on 17 December 1877.

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