Simon Phipps (bishop)

Simon Wilton Phipps MC ( * July 6, 1921, † 29 January 2001) was a British Anglican theologian and Bishop of Lincoln.

Simon Phipps attended Eton College and joined after he had there made ​​his college degree, now a soldier in the Coldstream Guards, a. He was promoted to officer in 1941. By the end of his military career, he reached the rank of Major. For a reconnaissance mission when he was wounded in the war on April 19, 1945 near the village of Chiesa del Banda in the Po Valley for the second time, to him the Military Cross (MC ) was awarded. After the war he remained in the army and was first used in India and the Ministry of Defence in London.

1946 Phipps left the army with the desire to become a priest. To this end, he studied history at Trinity College, Cambridge. He completed his degree in history in 1948. 1949, while he also received the training of priests at Westcott House, Cambridge, he was president of the student theater Footlights. In 1950 he was ordained a priest.

After his ordination, he joined his first job in Huddersfield, but returned in 1953 as a priest at Trinity College Cambridge, where he worked until 1958. From 1958 to 1968 he was responsible in various positions at the Coventry Cathedral and worked there mainly for the connection between church and industrial workers. He was appointed Suffragan Bishop of Horsham in 1968. From 1974 until his retirement in 1987 he was Bishop of Lincoln, and in that capacity a member of the House of Lords.

In internal church matters Simon Phipps was a mighty man, who advocated controversial positions such as the coexistence of homosexual priests and their spouses and the ordination of women.

Originally selected as an officer as the official companion of Princess Margaret, developed between the two friendship and Phipps also worked as a spiritual director for her. He was the godfather of her son David Linley.

Simon Phipps was married since 1973, the couple had no children.

Swell

• The Rt Rev Simon Phipps in: The Guardian, February 2, 2001, accessed on August 20, 2013
• The Right Reverend Simon Phipps in: The Daily Telegraph, February 7, 2001, accessed on August 20, 2013