REVEREND ANDREW BURNHAM
Suffragan Bishop of Ebbsfleet
(Provincial Episcopal Visitor, the Province of Canterbury)

It was announced from Downing Street at 11:00am today (Tuesday 12 September) that the Reverend Andrew Burnham MA, ARCO (CHM), Vice-Principal of St Stephen's House has been appointed to the Suffragan See of Ebbsfleet in the Province and Diocese of Canterbury, in succession to the late Right Reverend Michael Houghton BA BTh.

Notes for Editors
Reverend Andrew Burnham (born 1948) was honorary curate at Clifton in Southwell Diocese from 1983-85. He then served as Curate at Beeston from 1985-87. He became Vicar of Carrington in 1987 and served there until 1994, becoming Vice-Principal of St Stephens House in 1995.

Reverend Andrew Burnham is married to Cathy, an educational psychologist. They have a daughter and a son, aged 14 and 12.


PRESS STATEMENT OF THE BISHOP DESIGNATE OF EBBSFLEET

As Delivered
Tuesday 12 September 2000

Like most other appointments, the appointment to Ebbsfleet is an invitation to continue and develop the work of one's predecessor. Everyone is keenly aware - and I am particularly aware today - of the work of Bishop Michael Houghton, who died on 18 December 1999. Bishop Michael was a young man - slightly younger than me - and he was in post for only a bit longer than the time it has taken to appoint his successor. I want to begin by paying tribute to him and to the immense contribution he made.

If I can quote from something I wrote after his funeral at Bristol Cathedral:

It had taken Michael Houghton only a year to become a fine bishop, a much loved father of his priests and a shepherd after the Heart of the Good Shepherd who himself came to what seemed to be an untimely end.

I hope very much that, in my own way, I can continue Michael's work. There will be immediate differences. The most obvious is that I shall be based in Oxford and not Bristol. I do not believe that it was the work that killed Bishop Michael. Nonetheless, I shall be starting more quietly than he and shall be aiming to cover the vast territory at a somewhat slower rate. One of my earliest jobs will be to say mass for the repose of his soul, which I shall do on 18 December, the first anniversary of his death. This will not be a grand service but a simple occasion.

As well as paying tribute to Bishop Michael, whose skilful ministry I myself benefited from on more than one occasion, I here pay tribute to Diana his wife, and the rest of his family. They have set me - and all of us - a very fine example of living 'as those who believe in the communion of saints…. and the resurrection to eternal life', as the well-known prayer puts it. Diana, who was given the courtesy of advance notice of my appointment, has given me some of Michael's robes and his pastoral staff. These had been handed on to Michael by Bishop John Maund, Bishop of Lesotho in the 1970s, and the crozier - the pastoral staff - has done many hundreds of miles on horseback in its time.

I am becoming third Bishop of Ebbsfleet at a time just as the role of the Provincial Episcopal Visitors is entering a new phase. The Blackburn Report on the Episcopal Ministry Act of Synod is very much on the table, at present, and that directly affects the work of the Provincial Episcopal Visitors.

The General Synod in July asked the House of Bishops to 'initiate further theological study on the episcopate, focusing on the issues that need to be addressed in preparation for the debate on women in the episcopate in the Church of England, and to make a progress report on this study to Synod within the next two years'.

My aim, with the help and guidance of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who has been generous and tireless in his support of traditionalists, is to be a shepherd of shepherds, a priest to other priests and a baptised Christian among other baptised Christians. It won't be my job to fan the flames of the Church of England's family row over the ordination of women as priests but to care for those in my charge. I shall be consecrated bishop, God willing, on the feast of St Andrew the Apostle, 30 November, and I hope in some small way to take after the saint I am named after. He was a fisherman turned apostle and missionary. I want to be a missionary in the Midlands, South and South West of England. I want to continue the apostolic faith, once delivered to the saints and I want the Church to go forward into the future.

I shall begin, I understand, with a hundred or so parishes and perhaps two hundred and fifty clergy looking to me for some kind of extended episcopal care. Like any bishop, I should like those numbers to increase with new vocations and a greater flock, but, far more important, I want those parishes and those priests and deacons to increase in faith, in hope and in love. I want God's kingdom, in all its fullness, to dawn in and through the lives of men, women and children. I want Christianity once more to flourish amid the confusions of a society which has lost its way and which is in danger of turning its back on God. In short, the ministry entrusted to me is to be at God's beck and call, working for the coming of his kingdom of peace and justice.

Andrew Burnham

The Bishop of Ebbsfleet
Bishop's House, Dry Sandford, Abingdon, OXON OX13 6JP
Tel: +44 (0) 1865 390746

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