Sodor and Man, diocese of

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Sodor and Man, diocese of. According to tradition Patrick converted Man c.447. There was certainly a succession of Celtic bishops, but it was probably not until the reign of Edward the Confessor that the present see of Sudreys (the southern isles) was founded to include the Isle of Man and the Hebrides. The title ‘and Man’ is probably a 17th-cent. scribe's mistake. In 1152 the see was transferred from the York province to the Norwegian archiepiscopal province of Trondheim. Sudreys itself was returned to York in 1542 without the Scottish islands which had been detached in 1334. Between 1425 and 1553 there were both English and Scottish successions of bishops. There are Manx-language editions of the Prayer Book (1765) and the Bible (1772). The former cathedral of St German's in the island castle at Peel, now a ruin, reputedly dates from 447.

Revd Dr William M. Marshall

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