But now there is a problem. Wallace Benn, the last conservative evangelical bishop in the whole of the Church of England who opposes women’s ordination was appointed fifteen years, and has now retired

One of the first of many tasks awaiting the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, when he takes up office in early 2013, will be the appointment of a new Provincial Episcopal Visitor (PEV) or Flying Bishop for the See of Ebbsfleet, one of the suffragan sees in his own new Diocese of Canterbury.

The General Synod of the Church of England passed an Act of Synod in 1993 which created three PEVs, one for the smaller province of York, and two for the province of Canterbury, to minister to those parishes and clergy unable to accept the ministry of women priests. This arrangement, although treated with great hostility by supporters of women priests, has been remarkably effective in holding the Church of England together, as recent voting figures showed when the Women Bishops Measure was debated: the levels of support and of opposition to women’s ordination have remained almost unchanged since 1993, indicating the success of the Act of Synod which brought the PEVs into being.

The vast majority of parishes which have opted into the PEV scheme from the beginning are robustly Anglo-Catholic, although it was not devised solely with them in mind. Conservative Evangelical parishes have been much slower to adopt a PEV, partly because of their different understanding of episcopacy, and partly because there has been a deep-rooted suspicion that the whole thing was designed only for Anglo-Catholics. Those suspicions have been reinforced by succeeding Archbishops, who have appointed only Anglo-Catholics hitherto to the three PEV Sees.

It makes practical sense for them to do so, because each PEV has a large number of Anglo-Catholic parishes to look after, scattered across the full extent of England, divided into three parts.

But now there is a problem. Wallace Benn, the last conservative evangelical bishop in the whole of the Church of England who opposes women’s ordination was appointed fifteen years, and has now retired. At the same time growing numbers of parishes from his tradition are understandably clamouring for at least one bishop to be appointed in the Church of England who can minister to them. Prominent Evangelicals such as Rod Thomas (Chairman of Reform) and John Richardson are calling for Bishop Justin Welby to appoint such a bishop as the new Bishop of Ebbsfleet.

This would present a significant practical difficulty: most of the parishes in the see of Ebbsfleet are solidly Anglo-Catholic, to the extent that a committed conservative evangelical would find it hard to minister to them. And there are too many such parishes in the province of Canterbury for the other PEV, the (Anglo-Catholic) Bishop of Richborough, to cover single-handed.

But there are other options, if the Church of England is genuinely committed to providing for diversity within its own house, such as the appointment of conservative suffragan bishops in other dioceses, who could serve in a dual role, both in their own diocese and in the province.

The suffragan see of Maidstone, in the Diocese of Canterbury, has been held vacant since the resignation of Bishop Graham Cray in 2009 to lead the Fresh Expressions Movement. The new Archbishop could restore it by appointing one of the many outstanding conservative evangelical church leaders to be both Bishop of Maidstone, and also to serve the wider constituency in the province.

In doing so he could set an example for other diocesan bishops to follow, North and South, most of whom have studiously excluded all such conservatives, evangelical and Anglo-Catholic, from any senior office since 1993, despite the formal undertakings made in that year in the Act of Synod, that nobody would be marginalised. There could be no better way to build bridges between the divided strands of the Church of England, which found itself unable to approve women bishops on 20 November, largely because nobody trusts the liberal establishment to keep its word.

Great indeed are the hopes and expectations being focused upon Bishop Welby, who will need everyone’s prayers and many gifts of grace for his new office as Archbishop.

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