Diocese of Chester
| Diocese of Chester | |
|---|---|
| Location | |
| Ecclesiastical province | York |
| Archdeaconries | Chester, Macclesfield |
| Statistics | |
| Parishes | 275 |
| Churches | 368 |
| Information | |
| Cathedral | Chester Cathedral |
| Current leadership | |
| Bishop | Peter Forster, Bishop of Chester |
| Suffragans |
Keith Sinclair, Bishop of Birkenhead Libby Lane, |
| Archdeacons |
Michael Gilbertson, Archdeacon of Chester Ian Bishop, Archdeacon of Macclesfield |
| Website | |
| chester.anglican.org | |
Coordinates: 53°14′56″N 2°45′40″W / 53.249°N 2.761°W
The Diocese of Chester is a Church of England diocese in the Province of York covering the pre-1974 county of Cheshire and therefore including the Wirral and parts of , Trafford and Tameside.
Before the sixteenth century the city possessed a bishop and a cathedral, though only intermittently. Even before the Norman conquest the title "Bishop of Chester" is found in documents applied to prelates who would be more correctly described as Bishop of Mercia, or Bishop of Lichfield. After the Council of London in 1075 had decreed the transfer of all episcopal chairs to cities, Peter, Bishop of Lichfield, removed his seat from Lichfield to Chester, and became known as Bishop of Chester. There he chose The Collegiate Church of St John the Baptist as his cathedral. The next bishop, however, transferred the see to Coventry on account of the rich monastery there, though he retained the episcopal palace at Chester. The Diocese of Coventry and Lichfield was of enormous extent, and it was probably found convenient to have something analogous to a cathedral at Chester, even though the cathedra itself were elsewhere; accordingly the church of St John ranked as a cathedral for a considerable time, and had its own dean and chapter of secular canons down to the time of the Reformation.
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