The Right Reverend John Dennis
Popular Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich known for his humour and his unscripted sermons
THE RT REV JOHN DENNIS, who has died aged 88, was Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich from 1986 until 1996, having previously been the suffragan bishop of Knaresborough in the diocese of Ripon.
A keen cyclist, he took a folding bicycle on the train when travelling to meetings in London. When he was translated to St Edmundsbury and Ipswich in 1986 he arrived for his installation having cycled around the perimeter of his new diocese.
The ride along the Suffolk borders included visits to 160 churches; it was his way of marking the 75th anniversary of the founding of the diocese by “travelling round the edge and enfolding the whole of it in a loving embrace”. He was also a keen and quick motorist, priding himself on having obtained an advanced driving certificate.
Dennis was regarded in his diocese with much affection, not least for his sense of humour, which was inherited by his younger son, the actor and comedian, Hugh Dennis. His sermons were seldom scripted; his wife used to say that she had no idea what he was going to preach about – and she sometimes wondered whether he did, either.
John Dennis was born on June 19 1931 in south-west London, where his parents lived in the new development of Burton Park. His father, Ronald, a former platoon commander on the Western Front, taught science at Rutlish School, Merton, where Dennis himself was educated. His mother, Evelyn, was the daughter of LJ Nevilleboley, who wrote a biography of the scientist John Dalton.
When he was aged nine, just at the start of the Blitz, Dennis contracted typhoid. This caused consternation among the local authorities, who feared the outbreak of an epidemic. But his proved to be the only case, and after a spell in isolation hospital he was sent away from the bombing to live with his grandparents in Yorkshire.
Unlike his parents, they attended church regularly and took John with them. But it was only after attending a VE-DAY thanksgiving service that Dennis began to sense the dawning of his Christian faith.
This was reinforced by confirmation classes, which led him to feel a vocation to Holy Orders. On leaving Rutlish School, Merton, Dennis undertook National Service as a pilot officer in the RAF before going up to read theology at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge. He then trained at Cuddesdon Theological College before his ordination in 1956 to a curacy at Armley, Leeds.
Following a second curacy, at Kettering, Dennis was appointed Vicar of the Isle of Dogs in the East End of London, where for nine years he led a sizeable ministry team.
In 1971 he was appointed incumbent of John Keble Church, Mill Hill, in North London. His predecessor, John Ginever, had prepared the way by accidentally setting fire to the sanctuary – enabling it to be reordered in more contemporary fashion. For much of his time in Mill Hill, Dennis was also Area Dean of West Barnet. He was made a prebendary (honorary canon) of St Paul’s Cathedral in 1977.
Dennis was consecrated Bishop of Knaresborough in 1979 (it is rumoured that he put his new episcopal shirts in the washing machine with the family laundry, all of which emerged in a rather fetching shade of purple). He was also Director of Ordinands for the diocese of Ripon.
He was keen to explore the potential of Ordained Local Ministry, wherein men and women are trained, ordained and authorised to serve solely in the parishes in which they were called. The concept is not without its difficulties, not least regarding the status of a person’s priesthood when he or she moves away from their original locality, and the model has met with varying degrees of success.
It was during his episcopate in Yorkshire that Dennis was asked to chair a working party of the General Synod to explore admitting baptised children to Holy Communion before they were confirmed. The possibility had been examined before: a commission had concluded in 1971 that baptism signifies complete initiation into the Christian family and that children could be admitted to communion before confirmation on that basis.
The “Knaresborough Report”, published in 1985, recommended that regulations for admitting all baptised people to communion should be drawn up. With characteristic caution, Synod proceeded “to take note” of the report. As Dennis lamented, it then lay on the shelf for nearly a dozen years before guidelines were approved by the Synod in 1997.
Upon retirement from Suffolk, Dennis went to live in Cambridge, and then in Winchester, where he served as an honorary assistant bishop and, as he put it, “episcopal curate” in the parish of Weeke. He also exercised a valued ministry as a spiritual director and counsellor.
He continued to derive inspiration from the Franciscan Third Order, of which he was Chaplain from 1988 to 1994; and he relished having time to enjoy his family and indulge his hobby of wood-turning.
Dennis met his wife Dorothy at a lecture in Cambridge. They married in 1956 and had two sons: John, recently Ambassador to Angola; and Peter, better known as Hugh Dennis. His sons survive him, but his wife predeceased him earlier this year.
The Rt Rev John Dennis, born June 19 1931, died April 13 2020