It has been announced by Downing Street that the Venerable Rhiannon King, currently Archdeacon of Ipswich, is the bishop-designate of Southampton.
The suffragan bishop of Southampton is a key leadership role in the Diocese of Winchester covering the parishes, chaplaincies and schools across the six deaneries of Southampton, Bournemouth, Eastleigh, Lyndhurst, Romsey and Christchurch.
On the announcement day (13 Sept), Rhiannon will be introduced to representatives from across the region, first spending time at St Denys Community Food Project, before meeting students and staff at St Katharine’s CofE School in Southbourne. Finally, Rhiannon will join the community of Romsey Abbey for a service of prayer and blessing.
She will be consecrated as bishop on 18th October and welcomed formally at a service in Southampton, before moving to the city to begin her new role. She will be the 17th bishop of Southampton, following the Rt Revd Geoff Annas who has been acting bishop since November 2023, and the Rt Revd Debbie Sellin following her appointment as Bishop of Peterborough.
Rhiannon’s ordained ministry to date has spanned the dioceses of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, Birmingham and Ely. She was ordained deacon in 2000 and worked first in a team ministry in the market town of Huntingdon, followed by being the Rector of a multi-parish benefice just outside Cambridge. She then became Director of Mission for the Diocese of Birmingham which involved leading their Growing Younger project and helping to implement their ‘Transforming Church’ and church-planting vision.
She currently serves as the Archdeacon of Ipswich and Director of the ‘Inspiring Ipswich’ project. Rhiannon is also a trustee of ‘Leading your Church into Growth’.
She is married to Philip, a physicist and photographer based in Oxford, and together they love to travel in the UK and further afield whenever possible.
Rhiannon grew up in Oxford and is from a strongly Welsh family. She has loved visiting nearby Hampshire over the years and has felt a strong call to this particular role. Her experience working in Ipswich and Birmingham will be invaluable as she moves to serve Southampton, Bournemouth and the nearby towns and villages in the south of the diocese.
Rhiannon said, “I am delighted and humbled to respond to this call to be the next Bishop of Southampton, and I am looking forward greatly to working with Bishops Philip and David, Archdeacon Jean and other colleagues across the diocese, knowing that I have big shoes to fill, following Bishop Debbie. I am excited to have the opportunity to support the clergy and people here in mission and ministry. I don’t think there are many greater privileges than serving God and his Church and I can’t wait to learn from as well as contribute to what God is already doing here.”
“Over the years I have especially loved working with local parish churches, helping them to grow generally and, in particular, to ‘grow younger’ as they reach out to their communities. I also enjoy helping individuals and churches to start new worshipping communities of all shapes and sizes and in the last decade have grown a special passion for estates, inner-urban ministry and work with asylum seekers and refugees.”
The Bishop of Winchester, Philip Mounstephen, said, “I am delighted that Rhiannon has been nominated as the next Bishop of Southampton. She brings an abundance of helpful experience in parish ministry and in diocesan leadership, not least in a highly successful programme for the revitalisation of the church in Ipswich. More than that, however, she brings with her a self-evident passion for people, for God’s Church and its mission – and for our God himself. I look forward very much to welcoming her to our Diocese and working with her for the coming of God’s Kingdom.”
