Bishop Kenneth Stevenson RIP


With great sadness I announce that Bishop Kenneth Stevenson died during the night of 11/12 January. Bishop Kenneth was the former Bishop of Portsmouth, a constant friend of this diocese, one of the Church's greatest supporters of the relations between Anglicans and the Lutheran Churches of the Nordic and Baltic countries, and an outstanding spiritual and intellectual leader of the Church of England.

He took early retirement due to ill health, but until his death was deeply engaged in the Church's life and work. Bishop Kenneth was part Scottish and part Danish. His grandfather was a Danish bishop and he was was instrumental in enabling the Church of Denmark to sign the Porvoo Agreement last October. Sadly, he missed the occasion itself, due to his deteriorating health. He was a Knight Commander of the Kingdom of Denmark's Order of the Dannebrog, a sign of the esteem with which he was held in that country, as well as in England and in our Churches.

We entrust Bishop Kenneth to his Lord, and pray for his widow Sarah and his family and friends in their sorrow.

Comments

  1. allan mottram15 January 2011 at 12:17

    Bishop Kenneth & I were at school in Edinburgh together. We (all too briefly( touched base thereafter. He was at the theological college in Salisbury while I sang in the Cathedral Choir. Just as he became Bishop in Portsmouth, I left Winchester (same diocese)to become head of Christ Church Cathedral School in Oxford, where one of my governors was Rowan Williams (now, of course, Archbishop of Canterbury). I was delighted to discover that he and Kenneth were friends, as (for my money) they were/are the two greatest intellects but also pastors in the Anglican Church - indeed it might not be going too far to imagine that Bishop Kenneth would have been an equally good candidate.
    I mourn him, and resquiescat in pace.

    Allan Mottram

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  2. Peter Edwards19 January 2011 at 01:07

    +Kenneth was my spiritual director from 1990-95 when he left Guildford for Plymouth. He was a giant of love, warmth, faith, wisdom, academic knowledge, common-sense and pastoral care. And in his humility, he told me he had learnt much from me to equip him for his episcopal ministry! Such are the great.

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