Mervyn Stockwood

Arthur Mervyn Stockwood (born May 27, 1913 in Bridgend , Glamorgan , † January 13, 1995 in Bath , Somerset , England) was a British Anglican theologian . He was Bishop of Southwark in the Church of England from 1959 to 1980 .

Life

Mervyn Stockwood was born in Glamorgan, Wales . His father Arthur Stockwood, a solicitor , died in 1916 at the Battle of the Somme in World War I when he was three years old. In 1917 the family moved to Bristol . At the All Saints' Church in Clifton to, a suburb of Bristol, learned Stockwood at church Anglo-Catholicism know; this encouraged his interest in the ritual and the dramatic.

He visited the Downs School and Kelly College in Tavistock in the county of Devon . At the age of only 18 he became a lecturer . From 1931 he studied history at Christ's College of the University of Cambridge , where he earned his degree in 1934. There he was heavily influenced by the liberal college professor Charles E. Raven , Regius Professor of Divinity . In preparation for the priesthood he studied theology at Westcott House College, Cambridge .

In 1936 he was ordained a deacon ; In 1937 he was ordained a priest at Bristol Cathedral . After his ordination he was from 1936 to 1941 Parish Vicar ( Assistant Curate ) at St Matthew's Church in the Moorefields district in Bristol; from 1941 to 1955 he was a pastor ( vicar ) there. He was also a missionary at Blundell's School. In 1955 he was pastor ( vicar ) at Great St Mary's Church in Cambridge; there he was in office until 1959. With his sermons he attracted a large number of students, which brought them national recognition and notoriety. Stockwood, of extravagant and flashy appearance, was at times in Bristol and Cambridge Councilor for the Labor Party after he had become a supporter of socialism during his theological training . However, due to his unorthodox work, he was expelled from the Labor Party several times.

1959 Stockwood, on a proposal by Geoffrey Fisher , the then Archbishop of Canterbury , the Bishop of Southwark appointed. He held this office until 1980. During his tenure, Stockwood influenced both radical modernist and conservative currents within the Church of England. He encouraged priests to wear jeans in public , allowed participation in demonstrations and marches for peace and against racism, and advocated the training of “worker priests” in the Southwark Ordination Course. On the other hand, he was the first diocesan bishop of the Church of England, to the shrine of with a nationwide pilgrimage Lady of Walsingham in Walsingham in the county of Norfolk preached. Stockwoord was known for his unusual, sometimes radical, but always highly successful occupation of suffrangan bishops in the Diocese of Southwark. He appointed David Sheppard Bishop of Woolwich in 1969 , Hugh Montefiore Bishop of Kingston in 1970 , Michael Marshall Bishop of Woolwich in 1975 and Keith Sutton Bishop of Kingston in 1978 . In 1980 he retired.

Within the Church of England, Stockwood took a liberal stance on homosexuality . He campaigned for the liberalization of laws and against discrimination against homosexuals, supported legislative proposals for homosexual rights, invited homosexual couples to his dinner parties and once also blessed homosexual partnerships.

Stockwood was also made nationwide through his appearance on the BBC talk show Friday Night, Saturday Morning . There he took the view that the film The Life of Brian was blasphemous. At the end of the discussion, he said to John Cleese and Michael Palin that they would receive their "thirty silver coins" for their contribution to the film.

In his autobiography, Chanctonbury Ring (1982), Stockwood claimed that he had had numerous paranormal experiences throughout his life . In 1998 Michael De-la-Noy published a biography about Stockwood entitled Mervyn Stockwood: A Lonely Life . He described Stockwood as a socialist who appreciated the convenience of wealth, prosperity and privilege. According to De-la-Noy, Stockwood was "the most controversial diocesan bishop of his generation," especially an innovator and enabler.

After his retirement, Stockwood lived in Bath. He was patron ( patron ) of the Theater Royal in Bath and member of the board of directors ( council ) of the University of Bath . He was made an Honorary Assistant Bishop for the Diocese of Bath and Wells . In 1992 he held the funeral service at the funeral of John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer , the father of Lady Diana Spencer .

On the evening of January 12, 1995, Stockwood suffered a chronic asthma attack and was taken to St. Martins Hospital in Bath. He died there on the morning of January 13, 1995 at around 3:45 a.m. at the age of 81. The funeral service for Stockwood was held on January 27, 1995 at All Saints Church in Clifton. According to his last wish, his ashes were scattered around Chanctonbury Ring, a hill on the Sussex Downs in West Sussex ; this had been a place of spiritual experience for Stockwood. On March 8, 1995, a memorial service for Stockwoord was held at Southwark Cathedral .

Shortly before his death he was through the radical homosexual organization OutRage! been outed as gay.

Membership in the House of Lords

Stockwood was from 1963 to 1980 as ecclesiastical lord of the House of Lords . In the House of Lords, he spoke among other things in 1966 on the Abortion Bill, in which he advocated a right to abortion with medical indication. He also spoke in the House of Lords on the Palestinian refugee problem .

Web links

• Mervyn Stockwood - biography
• Obituaries: The Right Rev Mervyn Stockwood - Obituaries in: The Independent, January 14, 1995

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Obituaries: The Right Rev Mervyn Stockwood Obituaries in: The Independent, January 14, 1995
2. ↑ Michael de-la-Noy, Obituary: The Rt Rev Hugh Montefiore in: The Guardian, May 14, 2005
3. ^ Wotherspoon & Aldrich, Who's Who in Gay and Lesbian contemporary history , London, 2004
4. ↑ The Life of Brian: When Monty Python took on God in: The Daily Telegraph, October 19, 2011
5. ↑ Welease Bwian in: The Guardian of March 28, 23003
6. ^ The Way We Live Now: The Medium Is the Massage , accessed December 8, 2012.
7. ↑ Mervyn Stockwood: A Lonely Life Cover Text at Google Books
8. ↑ These are the ten bishops named by OutRage! ( Memento of the original from April 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Mombu The Religion Forum; Retrieved December 8, 2012 
9. ↑ Would prevent deformed birth in: The Age of February 3, 1966 (excerpts from Google Newspapers)

predecessor	Office	successor
Bertram Simpson	Bishop of Southwark 1959–1980	Ronnie Bowlby