Timothy Bavin

Timothy John Bavin, OSB (born 17 September 1935) is a British Anglican bishop and monk. He was the bishop of Anglican Diocese of Johannesburg from 1974 to 1985. He was then Bishop of Portsmouth from 1985 to 1995.

Bavin was born the son of Lieutenant Colonel Ernest Sydney Durrance Bavin RASC and Marjorie Gwendoline (née Dew) Bavin, on 17 September 1935. He was educated at St George's School, Windsor Castle and Brighton College.

He graduated from Worcester College, Oxford with a degree in Literae Humanioresin 1959 (Bachelor of Arts, Master of Arts 1961). During the following two years, Bavin completed his National Service in his father's old regiment. He was commissioned in 1958 and served as a Platoon Officer in Aden.

Returning to Oxford, Bavin studied for ordination at Cuddesdon College. He was ordained deacon in 1961 and priest in 1962, spending the period 1961-69 (and then 1973-85) in South Africa. He was the first Chaplain of St. Alban's College, Pretoria, then a curate at Uckfield with Little Horsted and finally Vicar of the Parish of the Good Shepherd, Brighton from 1971 to 1973.

In 1973 Bavin became the dean and rector of the cathedral parish of Johannesburg as well as archdeacon of the diocese and, in 1974 at a turbulent period in that country's history, its bishop, a position he was to hold until 1985. From 1985 to 1995 he was Bishop of Portsmouth, during which time he was appointed an honorary fellow of the Royal School of Church Music.

In 1987 he became a member of the Oratory of the Good Shepherd. After resigning his bishopric he was professed as a monk of the Benedictine community at Alton Abbey. As a result, Bavin has curtailed his involvement in the Athenaeum and the Royal Yacht Squadron, although he does occasionally preach at other Christian places of worship.

In 1994, Bavin was named as one of ten gay bishops in the Church of England by OutRage!, an LGBT activist group.

• In Tune with Heaven: Report of the Archbishops' Commission on Church Music. Church House Publishing and Hodder & Stoughton. 1992. ISBN 978-0-7151-3744-4. Report by The Archbishops' Commission on Church Music, of which Bavin was chairman 
• Deacons in the Ministry of the Church: A Report to the House of Bishops of the General Synod of the Church of England. Church House Publishing. 1988. ISBN 978-0-7151-3718-5.