Suffragan - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition suffragan

Definition :

Suffragan. Bishops are styled suffragan, a word signifying deputy, in respect of their relation to the archbishop of their province. But formerly each archbishop and bishop had also his suffragan to assist him in conferring orders, and in other spiritual parts of his office within his diocese. These are called suffragan bishops, and resemble the chorepiscopi, or bishops of the country, in the early times of the Christian Church. How this inferior order of bishops may be appointed and consecrated for twenty-five towns therein specified (including Thetford, Grantham, and Gloucester) is regulated by 26 Hen. 8, c. 14, which enacts that every archbishop and bishop disposed to have a suffragan should name to the king 'two honest and discreet spiritual persons, being learned and of good conversation,' and that each of them should request the king to appoint one of them. Notwithstanding this statute, it was not until very recent years, when the suffragans were appointed for a few of the specified towns, usual to appoint them. The Suffragans Nomination Act, 1888, however, empowers the King by Order in Council to add towns to those specified in the Act of Henry VIII., and to change the sees of suffragans appointed before the passing of the Act, and the Suffragan Bishops Act, 1898, allows existing bishops to be made suffragans. Many bishops suffragan, as of Stepney, Kensington, etc., have been appointed. The Act of Henry VIII. bys. 7, allows a suffragan, 'for the better maintenance of his dignity,' to have two benefices with cure.

Suffragans should not be confounded with the coadjutors of a bishop, the latter being appointed, in case of a bishop's infirmity, to superintend his jurisdiction and temporalities, neither of which was within the interference of the former, Co.Litt. 84, a, Harg. Note (3).