Colin Slee

Colin Bruce Slee OBE (born November 10, 1945 in London - † November 25, 2010 ) was a British theologian of the Anglican Church and from 1994 until his death dean of Southwark Cathedral .

Life

Slee was born in 1945 to a police officer in London. After finishing school he spent nearly two years as a member of the Voluntary Service Overseas in Papua New Guinea before studying theology at King's College London and then preparing for the priesthood at St Augustine's College in Canterbury . In 1970 he was ordained a priest .

Slee was trustee of St Francis Church in Norwich from 1970 to 1973 and was then trustee of Great St Mary's , the university church in Cambridge , and chaplain at Girton College , which was a college for women at the time. In 1976 he was appointed chaplain of King's College London . In 1982 he moved to St Albans , where he was Canon Residentiary and Sub-Dean of St Albans Cathedral and responsible for pastoral duties until 1994 . In 1994 Slee became the Provost of Southwark Cathedral; this title was changed to dean in 2000.

Slee was also active in church politics and often expressed himself in debates on church issues. He has been a member of the General Synod since 1995. In addition, he had been a member of the Crown Nominations Committee since 2006 , which was responsible for selecting new bishops and filling other high church offices. In 2001 he was accepted as an officer in the Order of the British Empire . In the same year he became a Fellow of King's College London .

In June 2010 he invited Katharine Jefferts Schori , Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America , to preach at Southwark Cathedral.

In an investigation after a fall suffered while on vacation in Mallorca in autumn 2010 , Slee was diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer. A few weeks later he succumbed to this disease.

Slee had been married to Edith Tryon from New Zealand since 1971 and had a son and two daughters with her. The couple also had two foster children whom they later adopted. Slee was the chairman of the Tutu Foundation . He was also active in the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellowship , the British School of Osteopathy and the International Network Focus on New Religious Movements .

Internal church work

Slee was considered a contentious figure within the Church of England with liberal views on women's ordination and homosexuality . He was a close friend of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Archbishop Rowan Williams . He was also friends with the theologian Jeffrey John . When he was denied the office of bishop in 2003 because of his homosexuality, Slee stood up for him and opposed John's conservative critics. The position adopted by Archbishop Williams as head of the Church of England met with harsh criticism from Slee.

Slee saw himself as a priest in the Anglo-Catholic tradition. He took Orthodox views on the organization of worship and appropriate clothing for priests. For example, he suggested that the clergy working at Southwark Cathedral wear black shirts to indicate history and origins, which are deeply rooted in the monastic tradition.

He was also an opponent of evangelical currents in the Anglican Church and tried to suppress their influence in the Crown Nominations Committee . Which, as in the case of the failure to appoint Jeffrey John as bishop, he did not always succeed. When Rochester Evangelical Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali declined to attend the 2008 Lambeth Conference , Slee accused him of attempting to split the church and questioned Nazir-Ali's continued membership in the Anglican Church.

Slee's views as a whole resulted in him being viewed as an overly controversial candidate for the episcopate, which cost him an appointment within the Church of England and, in 2007, his appointment as Bishop of Christchurch. In New Zealand in particular, his possible appointment met with fierce criticism from conservative circles.

Fonts (selection)

• New Religious Movements and the Church published in New religious movements: challenge and response (1999)

Web links

• The Very Rev Colin Slee obituary , November 25, 2010
• Religion Obituaries: The Very Reverend Colin Slee , November 25, 2010
• Southwark Cathedral's Dean Colin Slee has died November 25, 2010