While most bishops minister to their flocks on the Christian calendar’s most holy day, Richard Chartres will be on board the Minerva II en route to Benghazi in Libya. Fellow guests have paid at least £3,500 each for the cruise.

The bishop has been invited along as guest lecturer, to speak on aspects of the rise and fall of the ancient cultures of Egypt, Rome and Carthage. In exchange, he and his wife Caroline have received tickets worth £7,000.

Andrew de Berry, of the clergy section of the trade union Amicus, said the bishop had “lost the plot”. He added: “What is he doing leaving the diocese at the most important time of the year? This is about the most discouraging thing he could have done for his clergy.”

A bishop is normally expected to bless the holy oils on Maundy Thursday and to deliver the Easter sermon, celebrating the resurrection. Chartres will instead be on board a liner described by Swan Hellenic, the cruise operator, as “a haven of refined reassuring familiar comfort” with an atmosphere of “understated elegance”.

On Palm Sunday the bishop and his wife will be invited to a sherry-tasting session in Jerez, Spain, and on Good Friday the party will disembark at Tripoli in Libya to explore the ancient ruins of Leptis Magna. Holy Saturday will be spent cruising along the north African coast, with the ship arriving at Benghazi, on the Gulf of Sirte, on Easter Day. Trips to the Libyan interior, to visit Cyrene, are on offer.

The Minerva’s passengers are cosseted. Passengers can try their luck at an onboard golf range or enjoy facials, body cleansing, and massages at the ship’s salon. Vintage claret is available at the Grill restaurant, which has a formal dress code, and there is a resident jazz band in one of the bars.

The bishop can look forward to a warm welcome. “We will mix with the captain,” said Stephen Kershaw, a writer and jazz musician who is one of Chartres’s co-lecturers. “We are very well looked after and are treated as guests by Swan Hellenic. The ship is a classy outfit.”

David Jenkins, the former Bishop of Durham, has fond memories of a recent stint as a Swan Hellenic lecturer. “We were terribly well looked after,” he said. “The captain treated us with great respect and gave us sherry parties. We were invited to a private lunch with the manager and with the captain on his birthday.”

It is not the first time that Chartres has co-operated happily with the management of Swan Hellenic: in June 2003 he took part in a naming ceremony for the Minerva II, dressed elaborately in a black and gold cope and mitre. The opera singer Kiri Te Kanawa was also present.

A Cambridge University contemporary of the Prince of Wales, Chartres confirmed Prince William and was an executor of the estate of Diana, Princess of Wales.

When he took over as Bishop of London in 1995 he inherited the ruins of St Ethelburga’s, a medieval church hit by an IRA bomb shortly beforehand. He persuaded other denominations to help convert it into a peace centre.

He was identified as a contender in 2002 for the post of Archbishop of Canterbury, but lost to Rowan Williams. His opposition to the ordination of women may have counted against him.

Every parish priest in London is expected to lead Holy Week and Easter services in his own church. The bishop’s plan has dismayed some of his clergy.

One of his senior clerics, who asked not to be named, said: “The clergy who hear a bishop talk about the importance of Holy Week and Easter will wonder how this can possibly be when he plans to swan around the Mediterranean at the same time. What leadership is this demonstrating?” Other prelates, including the Bishops of Oxford, Leicester and Wakefield, are also on Swan Hellenic’s books as guest lecturers, but none of them intends to be away for either Easter or Christmas, the two most important church festivals.

A spokesman for the bishop confirmed he would be on the cruise and maintained that Chartres had not neglected his flock. He intends to record a service before he leaves for the cruise.

The spokesman said: “For those in London who wish to join in worship with the bishop over the Easter weekend he will be leading a Good Friday liturgy on Radio 4 from St Ethelburga’s Church, Bishopsgate.”

Additional reporting: Alex Delmar-Morgan

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