Bishop of Tasmania

Diocese of Tasmania
Location
Ecclesiastical province	Extra-Provincial
Statistics
Parishes	51
Churches	156
Information
Rite	Anglican
Cathedral	St David's Cathedral (Hobart)
Current leadership
Bishop	Richard Condie
Website
anglicantas.org.au

The Anglican Diocese of Tasmania includes the entire Tasmanian archipelago and is an extraprovincial diocese of the Anglican Church of Australia. The cathedral church of the diocese is St David's Cathedral in Hobart. The twelfth Bishop of Tasmania, ordained as bishop and installed on 19 March 2016, is Richard Condie. There are three schools associated with the diocese: Hutchins School, Launceston Church Grammar School and St Michael's Collegiate School and various organisations such as the welfare provider Anglicare and the Mission to Seafarers.

Robert Knopwood, a member of the original settlement in 1803, was responsible for the initial establishment of Anglicanism in the colony. Also important for the development of Anglicanism in the colony was the arrival of the Bible Society in 1819. Although most of the mainline denominations were well represented in Tasmania, Anglicanism was well established by the 1830s.

Church control of the educational system was a contested issue of the 1840s, with a division between Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics. On 21 August 1842, Tasmania became the first independent Anglican diocese in Australia by Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Queen Victoria and Francis Nixon was appointed first Bishop of Tasmania. Nixon initiated the creation of a synodical structure in 1858, combining clergy and laity governance of the diocese, mirroring similar measures in the dioceses of Adelaide and Melbourne.

In contrast to the Diocese of Sydney's long heritage of evangelicalism or Brisbane or Ballarat's unwavering Anglo-Catholicism, the Diocese of Tasmania's churchmanship has varied over time. It has been, by turns, predominantly Evangelical, Anglo-Catholic and Charismatic throughout its history.

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