Honour our link with Winchester
YOUR welcome editorial (4 September) rightly highlights the need for the Anglican church in Guernsey to put behind it the recent events (in Jersey) that have led to its separation from the Diocese of Winchester, resulting in governance from Canterbury and the Bishop of Dover. The appointment of a new Dean of Guernsey provides precisely the right moment for this to happen.
Guernsey's historic connection with the Diocese of Winchester, one of England's oldest and most important, goes back nearly five centuries. There were obvious, practical geographic reasons for the link with Hampshire but the synergy went far beyond that. The bond has always been treasured and, in the past, seen as of great benefit to both communities in Guernsey and Winchester.
The discussion about the contribution or 'share' Guernsey parishes are required to make is another discussion for another day, as is the cause of the current split being nothing to do with Guernsey but everything to do with Jersey.
Although the break with Winchester is regrettable from a much wider point of view, as you suggest in your editorial, I also have a particular concern. As a Guernseyman, an Old Elizabethan, chairman of the College Foundation and currently a trustee of two bodies associated with Winchester Cathedral, I am dismayed that our own link between Elizabeth College and the Bishop of Winchester has been broken.
Every Bishop of Winchester is the official 'Visitor' to the College – the most senior individual in the school's hierarchy. The ex-officio appointment was approved by Queen Victoria in 1852. Indeed, to alter this would require a change in the College statutes and would need approval by the Queen herself at a meeting of the Privy Council. And for the record, the new Dean of Guernsey will, ex officio, become chairman of the College board of directors.
The bishops have not just been figureheads. In the late 19th century, Bishop Sumner of Winchester played a hugely important role of adjudication between the Lt-Governor, the directors and the Principal. Much earlier, in the 17th century, Bishop George Morley set up five valuable scholarships at the College to pay for island boys to continue their studies at Oxford. Not for nothing is one of the main post-war additions to the College campus named 'The Winchester Building'.
Much admired in the cathedral itself is a set of cushions for clergy stalls, the work of Guernsey embroiderers and depicting the heraldic shields of the four main Channel Islands.
For some, this all might be an irrelevance – the stuff of history. For others, like myself, it is an important part of our heritage and we are proud of our links with both Her Majesty, her Privy Council and the Diocese of Winchester.
I sincerely hope that the new Dean Barker will kindly thank Canterbury and the Bishop of Dover for their interim efforts on the island's behalf but immediately set about leading the island back to its rightful and historic place within the Anglican Church and the Winchester Diocese – with or without Jersey.
BRUCE PARKER,
Chairman, Elizabeth College Foundation, Winchester Cathedral Trustee, Bridge Cottage,
Appleshaw, Hants, SP11 9BH.
