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 from 1959 to 1980 Bishop of Southwark in the Church of England.

Life

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

He attended the Downs School and Kelly College in Tavistock, Devon. At the age of only 18 years he has been a lecturer. From 1931 he studied history at Christ 's College, University of Cambridge, where in 1934 he earned his degree. There he was strongly influenced by the liberal professors Charles Raven, Regius Professor of Theology. In preparation for the priesthood, he studied theology at Westcott House College, Cambridge.

In 1936 he was ordained a deacon; 1937 was followed by the ordination in the Bristol Cathedral. He was after his ordination, first from 1936 to 1941 parochial vicar ( Assistant Curate ) at St Matthew 's Church in Moore Fields neighborhood in Bristol; 1941 to 1955 he was pastor then there also (Vicar ). At the same time he was a missionary to the Blundell 's School. In 1955 he became pastor (Vicar ) on the Great St Mary's Church in Cambridge; where he was until 1959 in office. With his sermons he put on a great many students, what they earned national recognition and notoriety. Stockwood, of extravagant conspicuous appearance, was for a time in Bristol and Cambridge councilor ( Councillor ) for the Labour Party after he became a supporter of socialism during his theological training. Due to his unorthodox work, he was banned multiple times from the Labour Party.

1959 Stockwood, was appointed at the suggestion of Geoffrey Fisher, the then Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Southwark. He held until 1980 this office. Stockwood influenced in his tenure both radical modernist and conservative tendencies within the Church of England. He encouraged priests to wear jeans in public, allowed to participate in demonstrations and protest marches for peace and against racism and fought for 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 Our Lady of Walsingham in Walsingham in Norfolk, preached at the national pilgrimage. Stockwoord was known for his ungewöhnlichliche, sometimes radical, but always highly successful occupation of Suffranganbischöfen in the Diocese of Southwark. So he appointed David Sheppard in 1969 as Bishop of Woolwich, 1970 Hugh Montefiore Bishop of Kingston, 1975 Michael Marshall Bishop of Woolwich and 1978 Keith Sutton as Bishop of Kingston. In 1980, he went into retirement.

Within the Church of England Stockwood took a liberal stance on the issue of homosexuality. He sat down for a liberalization of the laws and discrimination against homosexuals, supported proposed legislation for the rights of homosexuals, homosexual couples invited to participate in its dinner parties and blessed once a homosexual partnership.

Stockwood was also nationwide through his participation in the BBC talk show Friday Night, Saturday Morning. There he considered the film The Life of Brian was blasphemous. At the end of the discussion he said to John Cleese and Michael Palin, they would have received for their contribution to the film their " thirty pieces of silver ."

In his autobiography, Chanctonbury Ring (1982 ), claimed Stockwood, he made numerous paranormal experiences in the course of his life. Published in 1998, Michael De -la- Noy a biography of Stockwood entitled Mervyn Stockwood: A Lonely Life. He described Stockwood as socialists who knew how to appreciate the comforts of wealth, prosperity and privileges. According to De -la- Noy's Stockwood was the " most controversial diocesan bishop of his generation", in particular, an innovator and enabler.

After his retirement Stock Wood lived in Bath. He was patron ( patron ) of the Theatre Royal in Bath and a member of the Board of Directors ( Council) of the University of Bath. He was retired as honorary assistant bishop ( Honorary Assistant Bishop) of the Diocese of Bath and Wells. In 1992 he held the funeral service at the funeral of Edward Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer, father of Lady Diana Spencer.

On the evening of 12 January 1995 Stockwood suffered a chronic asthma attack and was taken to St. Martin's Hospital in Bath. There he died on the morning of January 13 1995 to 3:45 clock at the age of 81 years. The funeral service for Stockwood took place on 27 January 1995 in All Saints Church in Clifton stood. His last wish accordingly, his ashes at Chanctonbury Ring, a hill in the Sussex Downs in West Sussex was scattered; this had been a place of spiritual experience for Stockwood. On March 8, 1995, a memorial service for Stockwoord took place in the Cathedral of Southwark.

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

Membership in the House of Lords

Stockwood was from 1963 to 1980 as a clergyman Lord Member of the House of Lords. In the House of Lords, he said, among other things 1966 Abortion Bill, in which he spoke out for a right to abortion for medical reasons .. He also spach in the House of Lords to the Palestinian refugee problem.