Bishop of Ely

The Bishop of Ely is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Ely in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese roughly covers the county of Cambridgeshire (with the exception of the Soke of Peterborough), together with a section of north-west Norfolk and has its see in the City of Ely, Cambridgeshire, where the seat is located at the Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity. The most recent bishop was Anthony Russell, the 68th Lord Bishop of Ely, who signed +Anthony Elien:. The Bishops of Ely now reside in the Bishop's House, Ely, the former Cathedral Deanery. Dr Russell became Bishop of Ely in 2000, translated from the Diocese of Oxford, where he was Bishop of Dorchester from 1988. On 23 April 2009 he announced that he would retire on 28 February 2010.[1] He duly retired on that date. On 31 August 2010, it was announced that the next Bishop of Ely would be Stephen Conway, the current Suffragan Bishop of Ramsbury in the Diocese of Salisbury.[2]

The roots of the diocese of Ely are ancient and the area of Ely was part of the patrimony of Saint Etheldreda. Prior to the elevation of Ely Cathedral as the seat of the diocese, it existed as first as a convent of religious sisters and later as a monastery. It was led by first by an abbess and later by an abbot. The convent was founded in the city in 673. After St Etheldreda's death in 679 she was buried outside the church. Her remains were later translated inside, the foundress being commemorated as a great Anglican saint. The monastery, and much of the city of Ely, were destroyed in the Danish invasions that began in 869 or 870. A new Benedictine monastery was built and endowed on the site by Athelwold, Bishop of Winchester, in 970, in a wave of monastic refoundations which also included Peterborough and Ramsey.[3] In the Domesday Book in 1086, the Bishop of Ely is referenced as a landholder of Foxehola. This became a cathedral in 1109, after a new Diocese of Ely was created out of land taken from the Diocese of Lincoln. From that time, the line of bishops begins.

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