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| | CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Ancient Diocese of Chester (Site not responding. Last check: ) |
 | | Though the See of Chester, schismatically created by Henry VIII in 1541, was recognized by the Holy See only for the short space of Queen Mary's reign, the city had in earlier times possessed a bishop and a cathedral, though only intermittently. |
 | | But the chief ecclesiastical foundation in Chester was the Benedictine monastery of St. Werburgh, the great church of which finally became the Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary. |
 | | The archdeaconry of Chester, from the Diocese of Coventry and Lichfield, and that of Richmond, from York, were combined to form the new see, and the abbey church, now the cathedral, was to be served by a dean and six prebends, the complaisant ex-abbot becoming the first dean. |
| www.newadvent.org /cathen/03649a.htm (668 words) |
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