Michael Turnbull

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Michael Turnbull (born December 1935 Wombwell, Barnsley, South Yorkshire) was the Bishop of Durham in the Church of England from 1994 till 2003. He was a student at Keble College, Oxford, graduating in 1958. He prepared for ministry at Cranmer Hall, St John's College, University of Durham, and was ordained deacon in 1960, and priest in 1961 in Manchester Cathedral.

Turnbull initially served as curate of Middleton in the Diocese of Manchester, before moving in 1961 to be curate of Luton with East Hyde in the Diocese of Saint Albans. In 1965, Turnbull moved to York to be domestic chaplain to the Archbishop of York, Donald Coggan, and director of ordinands for the Diocese of York. In 1969, Turnbull was appointed chaplain to the University of York, a post which he held in conjunction with being vicar of nearby Heslington. In 1976, he was appointed as chief secretary of the Church Army. In 1984, Turnbull was appointed Archdeacon of Rochester, rising to be consecrated Bishop of Rochester in 1988. From 1994 until his retirement in 2003, Michael Turnbull was appointed Bishop of Durham, fourth most senior bishop in the Church of England with an automatic seat in the House of Lords.

Turnbull's leadership of the Church of England focused on reorganisation of its administrative structures. He chaired the Turnbull Commission (Archbishops' Commission on the Organisation of the Church of England) that lead to the creation of the Archbishops' Council in 1995. After the commission had finished its duties, Turnbull was appointed chairman of the Ministry Division of the Archbishops' Council.

Aside from Turnbull's work within the organisational framework of the church, he is perhaps better known for being the subject of scandalous headlines in the News of the World on 27 September 1994. The sensationalist paper had discovered that Turnbull had been charged with an act of gross indecency with a male farmer in public toilets in 1968, while he was chaplain to the Archbishop of York. Later that year, the gay-rights group OutRage! outed Turnbull and nine other Anglican bishops as being closet homosexuals who upheld the exclusively heterosexual teaching of the church. OutRage! attempted to disrupt Turnbull's enthronement as Bishop of Durham. Turnbull and the other bishops remained silent on the issue.

Anthony Michael Arnold Turnbull is married to Brenda, and the couple, who live in Kent, have three children and seven grandchildren. Following episcopal tradition, he signed his name +Michael Roffen while he was Bishop of Rochester, and +Michael Dunelm while he was Bishop of Durham.