19/12/2023
The Right Reverend Norman Banks, the Bishop of Richborough, is due to retire on Easter Sunday next year.
Bishop Norman Banks has been in post for over 10 years. He was consecrated at Southwark Cathedral in June 2011, by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.
Bishop Norman was ordained in 1982 and began his ministry as the assistant curate at Christ Church and St Ann's in Newcastle where he went on to become Priest in Charge. In 1990 he was appointed to St Paul’s in Whitley Bay where he served for ten years before moving to Norfolk as Vicar of Walsingham and the Barshams.
The Bishop of Richborough is a suffragan of the Archbishop of Canterbury and one of three Provincial Episcopal Visitors (PEV) in the Church of England.
As a PEV he provides sacramental and pastoral care for parishes within the traditional catholic tradition of the Church of England.
The Bishop of Richborough serves the dioceses on the eastern side of the Southern Province which includes Canterbury, Chelmsford, Ely, Guildford, St Edmundsbury & Ipswich, Leicester, Lincoln, Norwich, Peterborough, Portsmouth, Rochester, St Albans, Winchester and Gibraltar in Europe.
Bishop Norman said:
“During my ministry across the fourteen dioceses in my care, the See of Richborough has developed a very positive identity as the ‘Richborough Family’. I have particularly appreciated the opportunity to draw clergy and laity together for mission and study days, cathedral festivals and pilgrimages. During lockdown Zoom provided a new and helpful medium for sharing in church life which continues to be very useful to the life of a wandering bishop. Retirement is taking me back to Norfolk, close to Walsingham where I formerly served as Vicar and to the glories of the North Norfolk countryside.”