Building Bridges Seminar

Geoffrey Rowell was bishop of Gibraltar in Europe in the Church of England's Diocese in Europe from 2001 until his 2013 retirement; he passed away in 2017. Bishop of Basingstoke from 1994 to 2001, he was chaplain and fellow of Keble College, Oxford, and university lecturer in theology from 1972 to 1994. Bishop Rowell served for 10 years on the Church of England’s Liturgical Commission and subsequently on the Doctrine Commission. Beyond the Church of England he served as chairman of the Churches’ Funerals Group, the main liaison body between the churches and the U.K. government on death-related topics. He had wide experience of ecumenical work and a long standing interest in the Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches. Rowell was a church historian with a strong interest in liturgy and spirituality. Among his books were Hell and the Victorians, The Liturgy of Christian Burial (1973) and The Vision Glorious: Themes and Personalities of the Catholic Revival in Anglicanism (1983); he edited Newman’s Two Essays on Miracles (2010).