"The Rt Rev Christopher Luxmoore, who has died aged 87, was Bishop of Bermuda from 1984 to 1989, having previously been a Canon Residentiary and Precentor of Chichester Cathedral. He belonged firmly to the Church of England’s Catholic wing, and his opposition to the ordination of women saw him become patron of an abortive attempt to create a third province of the Church, from which women priests would be excluded. His appointment to Bermuda was part of an attempt to heal a serious rift in an island diocese of only nine parishes, where idyllic surroundings rarely inhibited strife, mainly a result of clashes between indigenous and expatriate interests. The failure of the diocese to agree on the election of one of its own priests to the vacant bishopric in 1982 had caused the Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, to persuade the recently retired Bishop of London, Gerald Ellison, to spend 12 months on the island as Vicar General, with the job of encouraging reconciliation. At the end of this time Runcie felt free to nominate Christopher Luxmoore to the bishopric. He had been at Chichester for only three years, but had superb pastoral gifts, was admired as a man of prayer and a strong leader, and had overseas experience, having spent eight years as a rector in Trinidad. During the next five years these talents were employed to good effect, with Luxmoore actively bringing local indigenous clergy into positions of leadership in the hope of nurturing a future Bermudan bishop. This was not an easy task, with rivalries and jealousy never far below the surface of Church life. After five years he felt that he had done as much as he could and returned to Chichester. However, he lived to see the appointment, last year, of the Bermudan-born Nicholas Dill to the bishopric. Christopher Charles Luxmoore, the son of an Anglican priest, was born on April 9 1926 in Boroughbridge Vicarage, Yorkshire. A boarder at Ripon from the age of seven, he went to Sedbergh School and then into the wartime Army, where he was commissioned into the Green Howards and served for a time as ADC to General Rankin in Calcutta. On demobilisation he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, then prepared for Holy Orders at Chichester Theological College; in 1952 he was appointed a curate at St John the Baptist Church, Newcastle upon Tyne." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/religion-obituaries/10775405/The-Rt-Rev-Christopher-Luxmoore-obituary.html
