Rt. Rev'd. Dr. Michael Nazir-Ali.

First Pakistan born Bishop of Rochester!
The Rt. Rev’d. Dr. Michael Nazir-Ali, born in 1949, is the 106th Bishop of Rochester. Born and brought up in Pakistan. He read Economics, Islamic History and Sociology at the University of Karachi, and Theology at Fitzwilliam College and Ridley Hall, Cambridge. His postgraduate studies at Oxford, Cambridge and the Australian College of Theology with the Centre for World Religions, Harvard, spanned comparative literature, the comparative philosophy of religion, and theology.

He has taught at universities in the UK, Pakistan and New Zealand and has been a visiting lecturer in these countries and in Canada, the USA and Australia. Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali is Visiting Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Greenwich and Fellow of St. Edmund Hall, Oxford.
After his ordination, and following a curacy in Cambridge, he worked as a parish priest in Karachi and was also on the staff of Karachi Theological College. He was appointed Provost of Lahore Cathedral in 1981 and, in 1984, was consecrated the first Bishop of Raiwind. Appointed a member of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s staff in 1986. From 1989 to 1994, and his appointment to Rochester, Bishop Michael was General Secretary of the Church Mission Society.
Michael Nazir-Ali is a director of the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies and, until recently, was a Director of Christian Aid and a member of the Inter-Faith Consultative Group. In June 1999 he took his seat in the House of Lords and since making his maiden speech in October he has initiated and contributed to debates on several occasions. He is a member of the Archbishops’ Council, the House of Bishops Standing Committee and the Anglican-Roman Catholic Joint Working Group. He is also Chairman of the Working Party on Women in the Episcopate.
Bishop Michael is the author of a number of books and is a regular contributor to The Times and other national and local newspapers, and to Radio and TV both in this country and abroad.

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