Diocese of Sodor and Man

The Diocese of Sodor and Man is a diocese of the Church of England. Originally much larger, today it covers just the Isle of Man and its adjacent islets. Today, the bishop's office is in Douglas and the cathedral is in Peel. The diocese is not generally called either "Sodor diocese" or "Man diocese".

Structure

The diocese administers 40 churches, which are organised in 15 ecclesiastical parishes. Formerly there were 27 such parishes, but their number has been reduced by extensive pastoral reorganisation between 2012 and 2015.

The Cathedral Church of St German at Peel (informally styled Cathedral Isle of Man) is one of five churches in the parish of the West Coast, the incumbent (vicar) of which is ex officio Dean of the Cathedral.^[4]

The parishes are grouped into four "Mission Partnerships" (Eastern, Western, Southern and Northern) for purposes of mission and inter-parochial co-operation. Originally informal (from 2010), these mission partnerships became legal entities on 1 January 2013 under the Mission and Pastoral Measure (Isle of Man) 2012.

The Norwegian diocese of Sodor was formed in 1154, covering the Hebrides and the other islands along the west coast of Scotland. The name in the original Norse was Suðreyjar (Sudreys or "southern isles"), in contrast to the Norðreyjar, the "northern isles" of Orkney and Shetland. The Isle of Man was included in with these southern isles. This diocese was a suffragan of the archdiocese of Nidaros (Trondheim).^[9]

Norway

As stated above, the Isle of Man was included in the Southern islands ("Sudreys"); the addition of "and Man" may have been made in the 17th century in ignorance of the proper application of the name of Sodor to the bishopric of Man.[12] It is suggested that St Patrick's Isle, being the location of the cathedral for the Norse diocese of Sodor, by some confusion itself became known as Sodor.^[13] By the late 16th century the terms "Sodor" and "Man" had become interchangeable, the bishopric being named in legal documents as "Sodor" or "Man" or "Sodor and Man", or sometimes all three, for the avoidance of doubt (e.g. the grant of the lordship of the Island to the Earl of Derby in 1610 included "the Patronage of the Bishopricke of the said Isle of Mann, and the Patronage of the Bishopricke of Sodor, and the Patronage of the Bishopricke of Sodor and Mann").^[14]

Until 1604 the bishops signed themselves "Sodorensis"; from 1604 to 1684, sometimes they used "Soderensis" and sometimes "Sodor and Man"; between 1684 and 2007 all bishops signed "Sodor and Man" or "Sodor and Mann". However, the present bishop signs "Sodor as Mannin", the Manx Gaelic equivalent, as did his predecessor.

Later history

The original

An 1836 proposal to subsume the diocese into the Diocese of Carlisle was defeated, as was the 1875 proposal that the Diocese of Liverpool (then at the planning stage, founded 1880) should include the Isle of Man.^[16]

Since the Isle of Man is not part of the United Kingdom, the bishop is never a

The name of the diocese served as inspiration for the fictional Island of Sodor, the primary setting of Wilbert Awdry's The Railway Series and the later Thomas the Tank Engine TV series, which place the island in the Irish Sea.^[19]

List of churches

Last fully updated 18 September 2018.

Statistics

Eastern Mission Partnership

Northern Mission Partnership

Southern Mission Partnership

Western Mission Partnership

See also

• List of churches on the Isle of Man
• Bishop of Sodor and Man
• Bishop of the Isles
• List of Church of England dioceses
• Sodor (fictional island)

References