suffragan Bishop of Richborough, who is licensed as an honorary assistant bishop for ministry in the diocese. Traditionally, the Channel Islands were part of the diocese. After a conflict with the 97th bishop, oversight of the Channel Islands had been delegated from 2014 to 2019 to Trevor Willmott, an honorary assistant bishop of the diocese and, until his 2019 retirement, Bishop of Dover. In January 2021, the Channel Islands were transferred permanently to the Diocese of Salisbury. 2021 rebellion On 20 May 2021, it was reported that Bishop of Winchester Tim Dakin had "stepped back" as bishop for six weeks in light of the threat of a diocesan synod motion of no confidence in his leadership. Williams also "stepped back" and Sellin served as acting diocesan bishop. Dakin did not return to active ministry, and in February 2022 resigned his See and retired. History The Diocese of Winchester is one of the oldest and most influential in England. Originally it was the see of the kingdom of Wessex (as such it is sometimes called the "Diocese of Wessex"), with the first cathedra at lost Dorchester Cathedral which site is commemorated by later medieval Dorchester Abbey church in south-central Oxfordshire. The cathedral was founded and served successively by Saints Birinus and Agilbert, the first a missionary sent from Rome. This Wessex diocese not only covered most of Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Surrey, Berkshire, parts of Oxfordshire and Wiltshire but for the first few decades three more south-western counties mentioned below. The bishop's seat was swiftly transferred to Winchester in AD 660: the episcopal cathedral see was, at some point, at Old Minster, Winchester. Around 704–705, Aldhelm saw the four south-west peninsular counties of England, save for Cornwall, form the Diocese of Sherborne. To Devon, Somerset and Dorset, Cornwall was added at the end of the ninth century. These were well-settled and healthy counties in relative terms and in about 909 Sherborne was divided in three with the creation of the bishoprics of Wells, covering Somerset, and Crediton, covering Devon and Cornwall, leaving Sherborne comprising Dorset. Winchester shed north-western lands in AD 909 such that Wiltshire and Berkshire and the parts of Oxfordshire formed the See of Ramsbury, with its seat being Salisbury Cathedral. The see of the Bishop of Winchester ran from the Isle of Wight and later the Channel Islands to the south bank of the River Thames at Southwark