Anglican Diocese of Sydney
Diocese in the Anglican Church of Australia
The Diocese of Sydney is a diocese in Sydney, within the Province of New South Wales of the Anglican Church of Australia. The majority of the diocese is evangelical and low church in tradition.
The diocese goes as far as Lithgow in the west and the Hawkesbury River in the north, and it includes much of the New South Wales south coast. It encompasses Australia's largest city as well as the city of Wollongong, and includes Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island. It is, geographically, among the larger Anglican dioceses in the world, though the smallest diocese in the state of New South Wales and one of the smaller dioceses in Australia. By attendance, it is also by far the largest diocese in the Anglican Church of Australia; in 2011, its 58,300 weekly attenders accounted for 37.6 percent of the Anglican Church's weekly attendance of 155,000, and in 2015, the diocese's 688 active clergy accounted for 28.1 percent of the active clergy across the church. As of 2023, the diocese reported that 48,000 adults, or about one percent of the total population in its boundaries, regularly attend services at Diocese of Sydney churches.
Kanishka Raffel, formerly Dean of St Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney since 4 February 2016, was elected as Archbishop of Sydney on 6 May 2021, and was consecrated and installed in that position on 28 May 2021.
History
Foundations
Richard Johnson
The Anglican ministry has been present in Sydney since its foundation in 1788. An Evangelical cleric, Richard Johnson, was the first chaplain to the new colony of New South Wales and was sponsored by the London Missionary Society.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Anglican Diocese of Sydney” is diocese in the Anglican Church of Australia. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Anglican, Diocese and Sydney, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “diocese in the Anglican Church of Australia” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4763520. VIAF identifies the subject as 136547989. Authority coordinates are -33.874, 151.206. 1 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2011, 2015, 2023 and 2016.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Anglican Diocese of Sydney”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Anglican Diocese of Sydney primary sources, Anglican Diocese of Sydney archive and Anglican research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Anglican Diocese of Sydney”?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Anglican Diocese of Sydney” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.