Eric Waldram Kemp

Eric Waldram Kemp (born 1915) was Bishop of Chichester 1974-2001. He was one of the leading Anglo-Catholics of his generation and one of the most influential figures in the Church of England in the last quarter of the twentieth century.cite web
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Education

Eric Kemp was educated at Brigg Grammar School and Exeter College, Oxford, graduating with the degrees of Bachelor of Arts in 1936, Master of Arts in 1940, Bachelor of Divinity in 1944, and Doctor of Divinity in 1961. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1951 and received an honorary D.Litt. from the University of Sussex.

Ministry

He trained for ordination at St Stephen's House, Oxford and was ordained deacon in 1939 and priest in 1940. He was Assistant Curate of Newtown St Luke 1939-41. He moved back to Oxford, where he remained for almost thirty years, first as Priest Librarian of Pusey House, Oxford (1941-46) and Chaplain of Christ Church, Oxford (1943-46), and latterly as Fellow, Tutor, and Chaplain of Exeter College, Oxford 1946-69. He was Dean of Worcester 1969-74 and Bishop of Chichester 1974-2001. He was ordained bishop before the introduction of a mandatory retirement age, and thus was able to continue in that post for as long as he chose to do so. As a result on his retirement he was one of the oldest and one of the longest-serving diocesan bishops in the Church of England. He had also held subsidiary appointments as Chaplain to the Queen (1967-69) and Canon and Prebendary of Lincoln Cathedral (1952-2001). In April 1998 he was appointed Chanoine d'Honneur (Canon of Honour) of Chartres Cathedral.

Family

Kemp's father-in-law, Kenneth E. Kirk, was Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology in the University of Oxford and Bishop of Oxford. Kemp wrote a book about Kirk and in 2001 presented his letters and papers to Lambeth Palace Library. He and his wife Patricia have five children.

ignificance

Kemp was one of the leading scholars of ecclesiastical law and a participant in conversations between the Church of England and the Methodist Church of Great Britain. He is a former member of the Court of Ecclesiastical Causes Reserved. [LondonGazette|issue=52828|startpage=2231|date=10 February 1992|accessdate=2007-11-21]

He had special concern for homeless people and those suffering with HIV and Aids and was a supporter of the campaign to save the French Convalescent Home in Brighton.

He was one of only four bishops in the United Kingdom who declined to sign the Cambridge Accord, affirming the human rights of homosexuals. [cite web|url=http://www.archive.changingattitude.org/lambeth_conf_cambridge_accord.html|title=The Cambridge Accord|publisher=Changing Attitude|year=2001–2006|accessdate=2008-02-21]

He was an opponent of the ordination of women and women priests were not licensed in the Diocese of Chichester during his episcopate. The first woman to be licensed in the diocese, following the appointment of Kemp's successor, John William Hind, was the Reverend Pat Sinton who was licensed as priest-in-charge of Shipley St Mary in November 2001. While Kemp was bishop women were able to work within the diocese through the approval of the Archbishop of Canterbury.cite web
year = 2001
month = 16 November
url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/1658614.stm
title = Diocese licenses first woman priest
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Publications

Author

*"Canonization and authority in the Western Church" (London: Geoffrey Cumberlege, Oxford University Press, 1948)

*"N.P. Williams" (London: SPCK, 1954)

*"Bishops and presbyters at Alexandria" (London: Faber, 1956)

*"An introduction to canon law in the Church of England" (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1957)

*"The life and letters of Kenneth Escott Kirk, Bishop of Oxford, 1937-1954" (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1959)

*"Counsel and consent : aspects of the government of the Church as exemplified in the history of the English provincial synods" (London: SPCK, 1961)

*"The Anglican-Methodist conversations: a comment from within" (London: Oxford University Press, 1964)

*"Square words in a round world" (London: Fount, 1979)

Contribution

*E.G. Wood, "The regal power of the church: or, The fundamentals of the canon law" (with a preface and a supplementary bibliography by E. W. Kemp (London: Dacre Press, 1948)

*"Papal decretals relating to the diocese of Lincoln in the twelfth century" (ed. with an introduction on the sources by Walther Holtzmann, with translations of the texts and an introduction on the Canon Law and its administration in the twelfth century by Eric Waldram Kemp, Publications of the Lincoln Record Society vol. 47, Hereford: Lincoln Record Society, 1954)

Edited

*"Man: fallen and free: Oxford essays on the condition of man" (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1969)

References