Province of Canterbury
The Province of Canterbury is in addition to the Province of York, one of the two ecclesiastical provinces of the Anglican Church of England. It consists of 30 dioceses and thus covers roughly the southern two-thirds of England, next to the Channel Islands, some border areas of Wales and by the Diocese of Gibraltar in Europe throughout the rest of Europe outside of the British Isles.
Metropolitan of the Ecclesiastical Province is the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is also Primate of the whole Church of England and honorary head of the Anglican Communion at the same time.
History
The province was created in the early Middle Ages, around the year 600 by the appointment of Augustine the first Archbishop of Canterbury. Between 787 and 803 the ecclesiastical province of Canterbury briefly lost about half of its territory, as the Bishop of Lichfield Higbert was elevated to archbishop and thus created a short-lived third church province.
Until 1920, when the independent Church was founded in Wales, Wales was also quite part of the province of Canterbury. Previously formed the Falkland Islands a diocese of the Ecclesiastical Province, but has existed since 1978, the semi-autonomous Parish of the Falkland Islands.
List of Dioceses
- Bath and Wells
- Birmingham
- Bristol
- Canterbury ( the Archbishop's diocese )
- Chelmsford
- Chichester
- Coventry
- Derby
- Ely
- Exeter
- Gibraltar in Europe ( including the rest of Europe )
- Gloucester
- Guildford
- Hereford (which also includes a small number of communities in Wales)
- Leicester
- Lichfield
- Lincoln
- London
- Norwich
- Oxford
- Peterborough
- Portsmouth
- Rochester
- Saint Albans
- Saint Edmundsbury and Ipswich
- Salisbury
- Southwark
- Truro
- Winchester ( also includes the Channel Islands )
- Worcester