Reiss, Bob – Grantham rector held St Paul’s pursestrings

Robert Paul Reiss (1943 – 2023)

CANON Robert Paul Reiss became Canon Treasurer and Almoner at Westminster Abbey in  2005 until retiring nine years later.

He was ordained a deacon in 1969 and a priest the following year.

The cricket-loving priest was curate St John’s Wood,  London  from1969-73,  before going to Bangladdesh as assistant missioner at Rajshahi Mission, near Dacca.

He was Chaplain of Trinity College, Cambridge 1973-78, and selection secretary for the Advisory Council for the Church’s Ministry 1978-85.

He became Vicar of St Wulfram’s Church Grantham in 1986 and left 10 years later to take the post of Archdeacon of Surrey where he remained until his present post.

While at Grantham he was elected a member of the General Synod and remained on it while archdeacon, so he had almost fifteen years on the Synod.

While at the Abbey he has completed a PhD in ecclesiastical history, which is due to be published as The Testing of Vocation: a Twentieth Century History.

He retired in the summer of 2014.

In retirement he obtained a Lambeth degree (an academic degree conferred by the Archbishop of Canterbury) and published a book Sceptical Christianity: Exploring Credible Belief. An essay Death, Where is Your Sting? Dying and death examined was published last year.

Canon Reiss left his wife, Dixie and daughter, the playwright Anya Reiss.

He was an all-rounder at cricket who could swing the ball a little and looked elegant at the crease. He learned his cricket at the Brondesbury Cricket Club, in London, played for Westcott House, the London and Ely dioceses, and in London again in the Church Times Cricket Cup, when he worked for ACCM. He was a member of the MCC.

In later life, he was immensely proud of three things: the Lambeth doctorate, his appointment as a Canon of Westminster, and his daughter, Anya’s, success as a playwright. He cast his eyes down modestly at the mention of all three, because they delighted him so much.