Bishop Hugh Montefiore

Description for BISHOP HUGH MONTEFIORE by John S Peart-Binns: Born into a distinguished Anglo-Jewish family, the Sebag-Montefiores, Hugh Montefiore experienced a dramatic conversion. At seventeen he saw a vision of Jesus Christ and became a Christian knowing nothing about Christianity, or the Gospels. He suffered great anguish at being cast out by the Jewish community and today he is increasingly aware of his Jewishness. Montefiore - tall and distinguished - has been a stimulating, demanding, and infuriating person for those surrounding him. He was virtually crushed by the avalanche of abuse directed at him for suggesting that Christ might have been a homosexual. A defender of causes, his impetuosity, gained him the name of Montefiasco. However, in many areas he was ahead of his time: in his warnings on pollution, the wastage of natural resources, the disruption of the ecological balance and the long-term physical and psychological consequences of over population, and his