The Diocese of Portsmouth website reports the sad news that Kenneth Stevenson, the former Bishop of Portsmouth, yesterday lost his battle with leukaemia, dying peacefully in hospital aged 61.
Bishop Kenneth died in hospital early this morning (January 12) after a short illness. His successful earlier treatment for leukaemia had led to a deterioration in his overall health and physical resilience to infection.
May he rest in peace!
I’m so sad to hear this. I remember standing with him at coffee time on a Chaplains’ Conference and he told me he was off home. ‘I’m missing my wife,’ he said, having worked out, quite correctly, the relative value of conferences and human life. It was a mark of the way he lived his life.
He was a godly man and a scholar. We could do with more of both.
Rest in peace.
Speaking shortly after he had been made Bishop of Portsmouth he commented that he had gone straight from parish ministry to be a bishop and hoped that would mean he would start with fresh experience of what it is really like! His liturgical scholarship and reflections were highly valuable and he helped interpret Common Worship for practitioners on the ground. His death is a sad loss.
This is very sad news. I knew Kenneth from his days as a student at Salisbury, and attended his priestly ordination. We had regular meetings through his years at Grantham and at Boston, though of late we have not had much contact. He was so much larger than life in so many ways – a man who deserved to be a bishop, and who, save for his illness, should have moved further up the greasy pole with ease and distinction. A very sad loss to the CofE.