Graham Dow

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Geoffrey Graham Dow is since 2000 the Anglican Bishop of Carlisle.^[1] He is the 66th holder of the office. He is a leading evangelical.

Born in 1942, he was educated at St Albans School and The Queen's College, Oxford.

Before his arrival in Carlisle, Dow was the vicar of Holy Trinity Church in Coventry^[2] prior to his appointment as Area Bishop of Willesden, (a Suffragan Bishopric in the Diocese of London) in 1992.^[3] He is married to Molly and has four grown children.

He was one of the 'rebel' bishops who signed a letter against Rowan Williams's appointment of the Reverend Dr Jeffrey John as Bishop of Reading in 2003. The others were the Bishops of Bradford, Chester, Chichester, Exeter, Liverpool, Rochester, Southwell and Winchester.

In 2005, Dow attracted media attention when he said that a stone in Carlisle inscribed with a 16th Century curse should be removed. The curse was pronounced on the Border Reivers by the Archbishop of Glasgow, and was inscribed on a stone as part of the city's millennium celebrations. Subsequently, some Carlisle residents blamed disasters such as an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, flooding and the relegation of the local football team from its league on the presence of the stone. Dow stated that "The original curse was not a godly act. For this reason I have always said that it would be better if the stone were not there" and said he intended to ask the current Archbishop of Glasgow Mario Joseph Conti to come to Carlisle and perform a blessing in order to remove the curse. ^[4]

His recent activities have included giving a blessing at the launch of HMS Astute in Barrow-in-Furness on June 8, 2007. ^[5]

In July 2007, following widespread storms over parts of England, he stated that he believed the resulting flooding (in which several people were killed) was the result of God's "strong and definite judgment" on the "moral degradation" of British society. In particular, the bishop blamed the economic exploitation of poorer nations and the UK's introduction of laws aimed at reducing discrimination against gay people.^[6] According to an article in The Times, the Bishop is a specialist in exorcism, explaining in a leaflet entitled Explaining Deliverance that “There is a view that both oral and anal sexual practice is liable to allow entry to spirits.”^[7]