The aims and procedure of the founders of the original Bishopric in 1841 are not without interest.
The failure of several attempts on the part of Lutheran Germany to secure episcopal orders through Rome led King Frederick William IV. of Prussia to approach England with the purpose of founding a Bishopric in Jerusalem in the hope of attaining that object, and in 1841 it was founded. Its income was provided by £600 a year, the interest of an endowment fund raised in England, and a further £600, the interest of a capital sum set aside from the privy purse of the King of Prussia. The nomination to the See thus provided for was alternately with England and Prussia; the Archbishop of Canterbury nominating for England to the Crown, and having the right of veto on the Prussian nomination.
The Bishopric, as then founded, was unpopular with many churchmen on account of its connexion with a non-episcopal communion, and from their failure to appreciate the difference between episcopal jurisdiction as exercised in the West, where it is territorial, and in the East, where several Bishops rule in the same area, each over members of their own communion. This led to the unfounded fear that there was an intrusion on the rights of the Orthodox Patriarch as Bishop of Jerusalem.
A further failure to obtain episcopal orders for the Lutherans resulted in the withdrawal of Prussia from the contract (together with the portion of income guaranteed by the King) on the death of Bishop Barclay in 1881, when the Bishopric fell into abeyance for nearly six years.
After considerable inquiry and much careful thought Archbishop Benson revived the See as an Anglican Bishopric; and Dr. Blyth, then Archdeacon of Rangoon, was consecrated Bishop of the Church of England in Jerusalem on the 25th March, 1887, the Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem having said that it was 'necessary that a Bishop of the Church of England … should be placed in this Holy City.' Ever since that date the Anglican Bishopric has
