The Diocese of Leeds

In this new Diocese, less than seven years old, we are working with three core objectives:

  • Confident Christians: Encouraging personal spiritual renewal with the aim of producing clergy and laity who are confident in God and in the Gospel.
  • Growing Churches: Numerically, spiritually and in their mission to the wider world.
  • Changing communities: For the better, through our partnership with other churches and faith communities, as well as government and third sector agencies.

The Diocese came into being at Easter 2014 following the dissolution of the historic dioceses of Bradford, Ripon and Leeds, and Wakefield.

The Diocese comprises five Episcopal Areas, each coterminous with an Archdeaconry. This is now one of the largest dioceses in the country and its creation is unprecedented in the history of the Church of England. It covers an area of around 2,425 square miles, and a population of around 2,642,400 people.

The Diocese comprises major cities, large industrial and post-industrial towns, market towns, and deeply rural areas. The whole of life is here, along with all the richness, diversity, and complexities of a changing world.

The Diocesan Bishop is assisted by five Area Bishops (Bradford, Huddersfield, Kirkstall (with responsibility for Leeds), Ripon and Wakefield) and five archdeacons (Bradford, Halifax, Leeds, Pontefract, Richmond & Craven).

Within the Diocese, there are 323 stipendiary clergy, 165 self-supporting clergy and 398 clergy with Permission to Officiate along with 408 Readers, 125 lay pastoral ministers and 52 chaplins in 656 churches with 256 church schools.

The Diocese is unique in having three cathedrals, Bradford, Ripon, and Wakefield, and over the past year the cathedrals have begun to work together on the key Diocesan services as well as developing three strands that they will offer to the Diocese – pilgrimage, civic engagement, and apologenics. This new Diocese, led by the bishops, is working out how best to create a Diocese with more than one cathedral, and to develop the ministry and outreach of these cathedrals in a way that secures their future and recognises their distinctiveness.

The Diocese has inherited strong partnership links with Sudan, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Southwest Virginia, Skara (Sweden) and Erfurt (Germany).

Click here for more information on the Diocese of Leeds.