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Diocese of Ely

 
British History: diocese of Ely

The see, now roughly conterminous with Cambridgeshire, was created in 1109. King Edgar and Æthelwold founded a monastery here in 970 to replace the double monastery, established in 673, but destroyed by the Danes in 870. When the see of Dorchester was transferred to Lincoln in 1072, the abbot's request for a bishopric was not granted until 1109, when Henry I carved the Ely diocese out of the vast see of Lincoln. Based on a rich abbey, Ely was in the first league of wealth and power. But the town for centuries had a reputation as a squalid and unhealthy place, though the cathedral, begun c. 1083, rose majestically above the fens, a landmark for miles.

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Wikipedia: Diocese of Ely
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Diocese of Ely
Province Canterbury
Bishop Bishop of Ely
Cathedral Ely Cathedral
Archdeaconries Cambridge, Huntingdon & Wisbech 
Suffragan Bishop(s) Bishop of Huntingdon
Parishes 309
Churches 335
Website www.ely.anglican.org

The Diocese of Ely is a Church of England diocese in the Province of Canterbury. It is headed by the Bishop of Ely, who sits at Ely Cathedral in Ely. There is one suffragan bishop, the Bishop of Huntingdon. The diocese now covers Cambridgeshire (excluding the Soke of Peterborough) and western Norfolk. The diocese was created in 1109 out of part of the Diocese of Lincoln.

The diocese is ancient, and the area of Ely was part of the patrimony of Saint Etheldreda. A religious house was founded in the city in 673. After her death in 679 she was buried outside the church, and her remains were later reburied inside, the foundress being commemorated as a great Anglian saint.

The diocese has had its boundaries altered various times. From an original diocese covering the historic county of Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely, Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire were added in 1837 from the Diocese of Lincoln, as was the Sudbury archdeaconry in Suffolk, from the Diocese of Norwich. In 1914 Bedfordshire became part of the Diocese of St Albans, and western Suffolk became part of the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, whilst Ely took a western part of the Diocese of Norwich. Peterborough remains the seat of the Diocese of Peterborough.[1]

Today the Diocese covers an area of 1507 square miles. It has a population of 641,000 and comprises 209 benefices, 303 parishes and 335 churches with 145 stipendiary parochial clergy.

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Coordinates: 52°23′55″N 0°15′48″E / 52.39861°N 0.26333°E / 52.39861; 0.26333


 
 

 

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British History. A Dictionary of British History. Copyright © 2001, 2004 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Diocese of Ely" Read more