KNITTING BISHOP HELPED BRING CITY'S FAITHS TOGETHER

Here's an interesting article from today's Leicester Mercury - all the more interesting because of the work Leicester Council of Faiths is doing currently, preparing for the celebration of our 25th anniversary.

Bishop helped to bring city's faiths together

By Tom Mack

A former Bishop of Leicester who did much to bring the city's faiths together has died, aged 85.

Richard Rutt was bishop from 1979 until 1991. He converted to Roman Catholicism four years after leaving the post.

He set up the city's council of faiths in 1986, visiting Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims to convince them to join him in forming the cross-faith organisation.

Resham Singh Sandhu, a trustee of the council who served as its chairman for 10 years, said: "I remember Richard as a man of great vision with great ideas.

"In those days, the Church of England and the Catholic Church were the most outgoing of the faith groups in the city and Richard came up with the idea of the council of faiths that has made the city the way it is today.

"He was very well-liked because he would go to religious places and talk to people from other faiths.

"Since then, the council of faiths has created much understanding and mutual respect between all faiths in the city."

Born in August 1925, Dr Rutt was ordained into the Church of England at the age of 27. He spent several years as a missionary in South Korea.

Speaking before being ordained as a Roman Catholic, he said he might have switched church much sooner if he had spent more of his time in the UK.

He was strongly against the move towards the ordination of women, which was allowed in 1992. He was one of 40 retired and assistant bishops who warned the Church of England's governing synod that the church would be split by the change.

He said: "The ordination of women is merely the ears of the hippopotamus. The body concerns morals, marriage and clear statements about faith.

"The Church of England is not able to give a clear message.

"The only place that really does the church's job is the Church of Rome."

A memorial service is to be held at Leicester Cathedral later in the summer.

The current Bishop of Leicester, the Rt Rev Tim Stevens, said: "I was sad to hear that Richard Rutt died in hospital on Wednesday.

"Richard will be remembered by many people in Leicestershire as a prayerful, scholarly and pastoral bishop who brought his Catholic spirituality and missionary experience to bear on his leadership of the diocese for over a decade.

"We give thanks for his life and ministry. He was well-loved in the diocese."

When looking for more on line about Richard Rutt, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that he was one of the leading men in the world of knitting. Known as The Knitting Bishop, he was the author of A History of Hand Knitting. There's an interview with him on the Serenity Knitting website.