Rt. Rev. Dr. Richard Chartres was appointed Bishop of Stepney in 1992. Experience of communal tensions in the East End alerted him to the growing threat to community cohesion posed by religious extremism. As Bishop of London from 1995 until his retirement at the end of March this year he has been able to participate in numerous interfaith initiatives as well as founding the City of London’s first consultancy on conflicts involving a religious dimension. The St Ethelburga Centre is located in a church which was one of the casualties of a terrorist bomb in Bishopsgate in 1993. With the assistance of Cardinal Hume and interfaith friends the church was rebuilt as a Centre for Preventing and Transforming Conflict. As a result of the generosity of a Muslim benefactor a tent of meeting woven of goats hair in traditional Bedouin style was established and is now widely used for practical peace building work.
Chartres has also been co-chairman with the former Grand Muti of Egypt of the symposium “Islam and the West” set up under the auspices of the World Economic Forum. He continues to Dean of HM. Chapels Royal.
