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Obituary: Bishop Geoffrey Rowell

DAVID HAMID
BISHOP GEOFFREY ROWELL died on 11 June. His death marked not only the
passing of a wise and warm pastor, but also, perhaps, one of the last breed of
scholar-bishops of the Church of England, who left his mark across the Angli-
can Communion and ecumenically as a theologian, Church historian and spiri-
tual guide.
It was a precocious 12 year old Geoffrey who once astonished his father
by telling him he was going to be a bishop. Sure enough, almost 40 years later,
that prescient remark came true when Bishop Colin James of Winchester in-
vited Geoffrey to come to visit one evening in 1993, poured him an extra stiff
gin, told him to sit down and asked him if he would like to be the Bishop of
Basingstoke. Before becoming a bishop, Geoffrey’s ministry as a priest was

Bishop Geof ey Rowel with the Co-Chairs of the Anglican-Oriental
Orthodox International Commission, His Eminence Metropolitan
Bishoy and the Rt Rev'd Gregory Cameron, Bishop of St Asaph

$42