THE Bishop of Oxford since 2016, Dr Steven Croft, has announced that he will retire in July 2026.
Dr Croft, who is 68, will lay down his crozier at a service at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, on 31 May, shortly after he turns 69. He said on Tuesday that serving as a diocesan bishop “has been and remains an immense joy and privilege” and that he was “deeply thankful for God’s grace in so many different people and communities across the diocese”.
After an education at Worcester College, Oxford, and training for ministry at Cranmer Hall, Durham, Dr Croft was ordained deacon in 1983 and priest in 1984. In the same year, he was awarded his doctorate from St John’s College, Durham, with a thesis titled “The identity of the individual in the Book of Psalms”.
He served his title at St Andrew’s, Enfield, in the diocese of London, until 1987. He then became Vicar of St George, Ovenden, in Wakefield diocese, where he was also a diocesan mission consultant. In 1996, he was appointed Warden of Cranmer Hall, serving until 2004, when he was appointed Archbishops’ Missioner and team leader of Fresh Expressions — the church-planting movement — under the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Williams.
In 2009, Dr Croft was consecrated Bishop of Sheffield where he served for seven years before his translation to the See of Oxford.
He said on Tuesday that his farewell service would “mark exactly a decade as Bishop of Oxford and 17 years as a diocesan Bishop in two very different dioceses, including 13 years as a member of the House of Lords. This has been and remains an enormously privileged role in which I have learned so much from so many lay and ordained colleagues, past and present.”
Dr Croft was appointed to the Lords Spiritual in October 2013, and has spoken on a wide range of issues, most recently on immigration, the transition to clean energy, school phone bans, and the future of journalism in a digital age (News, 2 May). He was a founding board member for the Government’s Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation, and in 2017, was a member of the Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence. In 2021, he was among 13 peers appointed to the Lords’ Select Committee for the environment and climate change.
In 2022, he published a booklet Together in Love and Faith, which called on the Church of England to lift its ban on the marriage of same-sex couples, even if this meant setting up an alternative episcopal structure for conservative priests and parishes (News, 4 November 2022).
Last year, he criticised the Alliance — an umbrella group which has been co-ordinating much of the opposition to proposed changes under Living in Love and Faith (LLF) — saying that their call for a parallel Province over blessings for same-sex couples would amount to a “deep and disproportionate schism” in the Church of England (News, 5 July 2024).
On safeguarding, Dr Croft has previously acknowledged that he “did not act sufficiently” — when he was Bishop of Sheffield — on multiple disclosures of abuse made by a survivor, Matthew Ineson, over a decade (News, 6 December 2024).
While Bishop of Sheffield, he served as one of two elected Bishops to the Archbishops’ Council and Chair of the Ministry Division. He is currently co-chair of the Anglican Communion Science Commission.
Dr Croft has been married to Ann, a nurse and a nursery nurse, for more than 47 years. They have four adult children and nine grandchildren.
A note from the diocese confirmed that the Vacancy in See Committee would carry out the first stages of the process to discern the next Bishop of Oxford, including a consultation. In the mean time, the Bishop of Dorchester, the Rt Revd Gavin Collins, will assume his duties.
Sir Hector Sants, who chairs the Oxford Diocesan Board of Finance, said: “We are in a good position to begin the process of discernment for Bishop Steven’s successor and we would ask for your prayers for this important work.”
